To be disappointed about this good luck card

[Marshmallow44]

I left a job in March, and I’ve received the good luck card only this week for some reason. It was a school role I suspect they closed for the summer and found it lying around somewhere, realising they forgot to post it.
It was a large school, with probably close to 100 staff members. I was there for almost a year and a half, granted it’s not that long, but it wasn’t a couple of weeks either.

I remember in my last week at the school in March, they sent out an email to all staff saying that I was leaving and that my card was in reception waiting to be signed. It was the time when all staff and pupils were back at school too.

I’ve opened it and I have a grand total of 8 people who’ve signed it, 3 of them are the office staff.

It’s not the end of the world but I guess I thought a few more people would. I am a quiet and shy person but I was polite to everyone there, I didn’t have any close friends or see any out of work though but I wasn’t part of a department or anything, I was the only one in the school doing that role.

It was nice of the organiser to do that card but at the same time they do it for everybody who leaves. Just feel a bit unpopular but I should get over it I guess.

I had this recently. Don’t let it get to you. IMO it just shows people’s true colours very clearly. Most work places are an arselicking competition, anyway. It’s never on how good you were at the job or how nice you were. It’s how much you sucked up to someone with influence.

@PizzaCrust

I had this recently. Don’t let it get to you. IMO it just shows people’s true colours very clearly. Most work places are an arselicking competition, anyway. It’s never on how good you were at the job or how nice you were. It’s how much you sucked up to someone with influence.

Do you work at my organisation @PizzaCrust?

I had the exact same conversation with a colleague yesterday, as neither of us schmooze the higher levels we are doomed

I’d be disappointed by that too - presumably they weren’t very organised about it at a busy time, but it might have been better not to have sent it at all. If I’d been organising the card I’d have taken it round for a few more signatures before posting. However, not something to dwell on too much. Perhaps even something to laugh about eventually. Best of luck with whatever you do next 😀

@Tinaburner77

No, I'm not 10.
I have read the thread properly.
Hope that helps.

No, the OP doesn't have to agree, but if nobody reiterates the response one person puts, then it is easy to dismiss as "one person disagrees with me". Once it gets to a lot of people saying the same, then the OP might begin to understand that everyone except her (and now you it seems) does perceive it as an odd thing to do.

If an OP doesn't want the honest opinon of hundreds of strangers on the internet, then why post the question asking if she was being unreasonable ?

Sorry but you did ask if you were being unreasonable and then you’re arguing with everyone who is saying you were. Why ask? It’s clear you don’t think you are and that won’t accept what most people think is odd behaviour you are saying is normal. So why ask?
We are probably seeing in action the reasons why you haven’t many signatures- you don’t seem to be the easiest of people to get along with. And you’re rubbing people up the wrong way…

You were there for 18 months, ending March? All through the Covid turmoil? You emailed them asking where your leaving card was?

Get over yourself!

@M0nica44

😂 It’s ridiculous how widespread it is! It’s the one aspect of work I will despise until the day I retire. The person you need to suck up to is always either bitchy/two faced/nasty as well.

It’s not for me and never will be. I just wish you were judged on your work ethic/talent, or at least given credit for being a genuinely nice person. But there’s a reason why nice guys finish last, and you know what? That’s ok with me.

At least we can go to bed at night knowing all our progressions have been based on our work and we are good people. I’d rather that and take longer to progress than pretend to like Mary who spends half her shift bitching about Jo, for Jo to then arrive at work and Mary spend the remainder of her shift kissing her arse. Same reasoning behind the card issue, too. Would rather receive a few messages from people who mean it than a card full of signatures of people who have said x behind my back the second I’ve clocked out!

@Marshmallow44

The emailing about the card is because I knew the card existed and was told it would be posted out to me. I don’t want a card they’ve bought and posted to not arrive to me, so I emailed to double check if it had been posted. That’s the last time I will explain that, think it’s odd all you like but I’m not bothered.

What would have you have expected the school office to do if it had been lost in the post?

@Marshmallow44

Laughing how easily weirded out these people are ‘omg you emailed asking about something you were told would be posted to you?! Eww you’re so weird and odd!”

How old are you?

@PizzaCrust

I had this recently. Don’t let it get to you. IMO it just shows people’s true colours very clearly. Most work places are an arselicking competition, anyway. It’s never on how good you were at the job or how nice you were. It’s how much you sucked up to someone with influence.

Never a truer word was spoken!

I'd be a little disappointed by so few signatures, but can see various reasons for it. Unlikely it's because people took a dislike to you

If you thought the card might contain a gift voucher, I can see you might chase it up, in case it was sitting in a desk by mistake. But if you were actually chasing just a card, that's bizarre

I had a colleague get married a few years ago. I get on well with her, but wasn’t in the same locality team as her, so others were closer to her than I was. She was well liked, would go out to all the team drinks etc, respected professionally etc. With a few weeks to go to her wedding I asked if someone was organising a card/present for her. Nothing arranged.
Few weeks later, it’s now 2 weeks until she got married. Nothing. I ended up organising a card, collecting the money and sorting a present. Had to chase people up to sign it. I even emailed everyone saying please just send me an email and I’ll write your message in for you.
Honestly, it upset me that everyone was happy to leave it to someone else to do. I suspect that’s what happened to you, everyone else thought, oh it’s a big team, lots of people will sign it, won’t matter if I don’t.
Yes, it’s sad, but it’s a reflection on them and not you, so please don’t take it personally. I do wonder if Covid plays a role in things now too, people not wanting to go into different work areas/touch things others have.
I hope your new job is in a much nicer team OP x

I work in a school. Now I’m SLT I probably make more of an effort to sign leaving cards. But before, even for people I liked, I can’t remember ever doing it because I just didn’t have the time to schlep up to wherever the card was. It’s also the kind of thing that when reading the insane number of emails I got on the daily, I would just delete because it didn’t require urgent action. When people in my department left I’d obviously contribute to the department cards/presents but in the wider school I’m sorry to say I never did, whoever it was for. It definitely was not personal and a reflection on that person, just a reflection on me!

I am also laughing at all the miserable people on this thread who think that anyone who gets on at work is an “arse-licker”. I think we all know what bundles of joy you all are!

Msybe the original one with 100s of signatures got lost & this one was hurriedly signed & sent?!

Covid has been a life suck. Iv a friends baby card sitting that virtually no one signed but everyone sent me money 🤷‍♀️

@MasterBeth

You’re purposefully misinterpreting my post. I’m not talking about people who get on well and are genuine friends. I’m talking about people who are nice as pie to someone one day and the second they’re off they lay into them. Or suck up to people so they become favourites and get away with doing less work while the others pick up the slack.

If you’re finding that difficult to understand, then you must be one of them.

No-one was using staffrooms due to Cv19 and so no-one will have seen it probably.

Leaving mid-year probably didn't help.

At my school cards are kept in the office to sign. In the summer (& to a lesser extent before xmas), there'll be several cards to sign so everyone schleps up at some stage in the final week to sign them all - it's part of the end of term ritual.

If I got an email in March about a colleague I barely knew who was leaving & saying their card was in the office, it's highly likely I'd forget pretty much instantly, I'm afraid.

If we were personal friends, I might get you something individual (leaving mid year usually implies some sort of professional or personal issue, so I would want to support you if you were my friend).

But if it was just random 'Mary the Science TA/Geography maternity cover/Art technician' etc etc, then I wouldn't expect you to give a scooby if a virtual stranger signed your card or not, tbh. So unless I was in the office for something else & someone said 'whilst you're here can you sign Mary's card?' then it wouldn't really be on my radar.

That probably sounds quite cold; I'm not bothered by receiving cards myself so maybe I'm unusually hardboiled about it! But I'd guess everyone in the office was too busy to chase it up what with lockdown etc. Nowt personal I'm sure.

It doesn’t matter that you think it wasn’t weird to email asking for your card OP - a lot of people on here do think it was weird, and therefore it’s at least possible that it raised some eyebrows in the office.

I reckon they saw how few signatures you had and thought that it would be less hurtful not to receive any card at all, because most people probably wouldn’t dwell on not getting a card. Then they got your email, dug it out (or made a new one) and sent it.

I really wouldn’t take it personally that you didn’t get many signatures. I actually think 7 signatures for someone that isn’t attached to any particular department is quite a lot - you made an impression on at least 7 people in a role where it’s difficult to bond with people.

Now that you’re no longer in a cover role, I’m sure you’ll get a better card next time you leave.

I find this all rather strange.
You were there for a short time (in the grand scheme) during what has been one of the most tumultuous times in education.
You were quiet and made no friends.
You were put on an informal support plan so clearly were struggling in some way there.
You bothered to actually contact them to chase a goodbye card?

I think PPs are right about you probably not registering, it is the way of the world in large, busy workplaces, but maybe you also rubbed people up the wrong way accidentally. Your post reads quite strangely and I wonder if this is it.

Chuck it in the bin and forget about it.

Part of my job at work was to organise cards, flowers and presents. When I got married nobody bothered to do anything for me. The day I got back from honeymoon my boss asked me to order flowers for one of the drivers whose wife had just had a baby. I concluded that I wasn't very well liked! I handed my notice in the following week.

[quote PizzaCrust]@MasterBeth

You’re purposefully misinterpreting my post. I’m not talking about people who get on well and are genuine friends. I’m talking about people who are nice as pie to someone one day and the second they’re off they lay into them. Or suck up to people so they become favourites and get away with doing less work while the others pick up the slack.

If you’re finding that difficult to understand, then you must be one of them.[/quote]
Or maybe your contention that “most workplaces are an arse-licking competition” reflects more on you than on most workplaces…

I think I remember your previous threads about being a cover supervisor and feeling like other meme bets of staff haven’t been treating you well and supporting you.

I really would just leave that whole experience behind you and move forward; maybe trying to learn from previous mistakes

Agree with the staffroom comment

Also at my school we had a rush of people leave in the summer term so they got bugger all compared to previous leavers. We didn’t even get a proper goodbye as so many staff and students were isolating.