Teacher's Tea Fund

[Foxtrot92]

I work as TA in a very small school, working only 2 hours in the afternoon, 3 days a week.

Today a teacher approached me and asked for £15 towards the tea fund for the term. She was very nice and said that's what everyone was contributing.

I refused politely saying that I'm only in 6 hours a week, bring in my own mug with tea and sugar in and only use a splash of milk. I did offer something towards the milk or offered to start bringing in my own. The teacher flapped muttering 'fine, if that's how you want to be' before storming off.

WIBU? As a TA on 6 hours a week for minimum wage, I can't afford £15 for a tea fund I hardly benefit from. I don't eat the cakes and biscuits they buy (don't like cakes and biscuits ).

Shadow I expect it stays hotter without milk in it.

Ah, I see! I suspect a splash of milk won't cool it down that much. I make my tea with milk in the morning but I still need to leave it to cool at lunchtime before I can drink it.

I do think it will antagonize coworkers to refuse to pay but use their milk. Not my work place though.

My work provides nothing by the way. We have a staff room with a fridge and microwave and a vending machine that sells drinks. I take in a packed lunch, flask of tea and flask of water.

It's usually pro rata, with the cheapest coffee and tea, and a 20p honesty box for visitors. Only ever been in one school that had free, and doughnuts on Friday, but that was a wealthy governor who personally decided it was his way of appreciating the staff.

She is being unreasonable, bring your own milk in and put a sticker on it with your name ( so they cant say, shes using our milk) and leave it at that. why do people have to make life hard?

I can never understand this. It causes so many problems that it would be worth the school finding the money from somewhere.

Nothing annoys me more than a workplace where you have to pay for the odd cup of tea. Two cups of tea per person per day is hardly going to break the bank, surely?

We always had to pay for tea and coffee. It's a school. Where do people think the money comes from?
I had the misfortune to be in charge of collecting the tea money for several years. We always operated as pro rata system, and I do think it is unfair to try to charge a part timer the same as as full timer. Ours was collected weekly and if people were off sick they didn't pay.
It is a thankless task tbh, and no one volunteered to do it.
We never charged supply teachers , but after I retired I discovered that quite a lot of schools do, on a per cup basis.

I am a little confused by this. Say there are 10 teachers in a school, and obviously there are usually many more, that's £150 on coffee/ tea. How can you possibly spend that much.

Schools can barely afford to keep the lights on, let alone pay for tea and coffee which the staff rarely get a chance to drink anyway.

Op, ours is pro rata, with an option to not pat and provide your own, she was being VU.

It's £150 over a term, so maybe 14 weeks? That makes it just over £10 a week, and OP says it covers tea, coffee and biscuits and sometimes cakes. I can very easily see how you could spend £1 per week per person on that.

birds any excess we have goes towards end of summer term lunch, or Christmas meal fund. Plus we only pay a tenner as a full timer, and less if you consume less. You're right, it's a lot of wedge!

I definitely think you should pay pro rata, but

1. I am suspicious of your 'splash' of milk. Almost everyone only has a splash in a hot drink. What you mean is 'I do use the milk'. I think you should be paying into the fund if you're using it - it's not really fair to decide you're only using it 'a bit'.
2. While you work very few hours, you have a disproportionate number of tea breaks, if that makes sense. I can see how someone who sees you having a drink three times a week might think 'oh, she's always using the milk, she should contribute' because to them it probably feels like you're there having a drink a lot of the time. I'd just remind them that you're part-time. I'd count it as 3/10 (three afternoons - I know your actual working hours are a lot less than 3/10 full time, but in terms of 'tea drinking opportunity'), which makes it £4.50 - I'd round it to a fiver a term, stop faffing around with transporting a tea bag and sugar and call it a day.

If you are part time then you are not being unreasonable op.

Not rtft but £15 is a lot. Our school buy cheap coffee (you cannot drink it black!) and mid range tea and our fund fee was half that before they took it away completely.

Milk is another issue though. People use the staff milk for cereal and porridge which I think is where the hiked up price probably comes from.

Either way , offering a few quid was fine op.

One of the few perks of working in catering and hospitality (as I did) is endless free hot drinks.

DH's last two workplaces have got round the endless coffee fund/milk rota arguments by installing coffee machines that charge 20p a cup.

I took over the tea fund (nhs team) at my work. It's £3 a month or half for part time. It pays for tea, coffee, decaf for both and red and green milk. Every 3 months each person buys the milk and gets refunded. A few people bring their own, which is fine! If you're using the milk either contribute a few quid for that, or bring your own. It might just be 'a splash' but it does add up

I need a tea when I get in. I park it next to the laminating, photocopying, book-labelling, display prep etc that I'm doing. I'm on my feet for 8 hours and tea powers me through it. The idea of a tea break is a laugh though. I make the tea and drink it while I work.

mary32
ODFOD
talking more bollocks didn't your spell caster cure you then?

You don't work a shift that includes a tea break so why would you a) need a cuppa and b) pay into the tea break fund?
I'd say you have 15 weeks of tea so that's 15 teabags and 2 pts of milk so you will pay reasonable costs.

If they work out the £15 as £1 per week per person per 5 day week at 3 cups a day (for example) that's £1 for 15 cups.
Very reasonable!

You have 3 cups a week so 20p per week. Offer to lay £3.

You don't work a shift that includes a tea break so why would you a) need a cuppa and b) pay into the tea break fund

Is answered by this:

I need a tea when I get in. I park it next to the laminating, photocopying, book-labelling, display prep etc that I'm doing. I'm on my feet for 8 hours and tea powers me through it. The idea of a tea break is a laugh though. I make the tea and drink it while I work

I've worked in places where people have a proper break. They go to a staffroom, sit down and chat for 20 minutes.

I've worked in places where people grab a drink and then go back to their desk or classroom and carry on working.

I think some people can't see the difference between a tea break and grabbing a drink to take back to the work area.

In our school we even have to pay for hot water!

I bring my own tea/coffee and use UHT milk but I am asked to pay for the hot water I use!

2.5 days a week, one cup of hot water costs me £3 per month!

In our school we even have to pay for hot water

I think the cost of energy required to boil a kettle is 0.1 pence

Wow they must get through a lot of tea! I manage our work fund and it's £10 each which lasts 4 months and covers tea/coffee/sugar and milk. There's 70 people in the department and 20-odd opted in. Those who don't have milk get a 50% reduction.

People who are part-time or don't drink a lot of hot drinks tend to choose to do their own thing.

All the surprise that public sector workers/teachers have to fund their own tea and coffee