Teacher strikes and work plans

[Yellowcoffeecup]

Not sure who to be pissed off with teachers or work colleagues.

Big face to face team meeting next Wednesday. Whole morning.

Been in diary for couple of months.

Due to teachers strike colleagues now saying they can't make the meeting. They're saying they can't join on line either because of distraction by their children.

Fine - take a days annual leave or make alternative arrangements for your children.

Not a meeting to easily rearrange.

AIBU to be pissed with teachers ?
AIBU to be pissed with colleagues ?
AIBU all round ?

I don’t really get the meeting part. I can’t imagine being paid to work but just not doing it.

It’s not easy to get quick notice cc here though and given the amount of working parents organising a meet up I’d say they’ve taken AL instead.

My comment was more generally re the line school is not childcare which is very irritating and pointless more than my situation. We’ve been very lucky and lightly affected by strikes so no need to write to MP. Although I did when schools were closed during pandemic. Labour MP so it didn’t do much.

It's all very well saying that employees need to find alternative childcare, but even with 'notice' (though to be honest, we only had an email on Thursday from the school saying that they were hoping to remain open, but that it might change!), would you care to provide a list of some alternatives? No family support, most other parents are in exactly the same position, I don't imagine childminders would randomly have a spare random one-off slot....

😁 Me too!

But how does that help the meeting go ahead if they all have to take leave? So many people have pointed that out to you, but you don't seem to have answered it...

We’ve had word from our school it’s staying open, so these colleagues may find themselves in the same situation and this becomes a non issue.
I need to save my leave for school holidays I don’t have enough left to book leave for strikes.

If our school does close at last minute (as teachers can change their mind) I have to try and work from home with kids at home. I’ll do my best and I’m lucky I can do that. A meeting would be difficult but there’s always screen time.

I would still love to know this, it’s very confusing.

Except you are kind of proving it does, aren’t you?

Teachers don’t want sympathy, we literally don’t care if the public are behind us or not, because we know they never are.

To all you that wonder , as it seems an issue , meeting will not go ahead as people can't attend either in person or virtually because of children.

If they don't take annual leave then they should be working from home - ( yeah right ! )

The entire county would fall apart without teachers, which strikes basically prove. No teachers = no “childcare” and no one being able to go to work. Teachers are leaving the profession in their droves and not enough people are going into teaching. The future of our education system is looking bleaker and bleaker. These strikes are providing a snippet of how life could actually be if things carry on the way they are. So basically, yes, the world does actually revolve around what teachers do in the classroom. Quite an ironic comment.

You sound like a terrible boss.

I'm way more productive working from home than in the office.

God, you're coming over as the boss from hell. No trust, all sneering and vindictive.

As your meeting won't be going ahead, now's the opportunity to re-visit and see what can be sent out as pre-meeting notes, etc. so you can cut down on the meeting time and everyone can be more productive.

Seriously, a whole morning meeting is never going to be useful.

Spot on.

Yes, if they cannot make childcare arrangements (and the notice period for the strike means emergency parental leave does not apply) then it should be either annual or unpaid leave.

There's a national train strike too so not a great day to try and get anything done tbh

You sound like management. Inflexible, solipsistic and tantruming when the universe doesn’t spin the way you want it to.
Tell your staff to stop being pathetic and get their partners to take the day off and deal with their children. That the meeting is essential and there will Be Consequences for anyone bunking off.
Read the book SLT Newbie for further tips.
www.amazon.co.uk/Hi-all-Thanks-Emails-school/dp/B09XZDLB2T/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WS2P7UVSQEFS&keywords=slt+newbie&qid=1674938357&s=digital-text&sprefix=SLT+%2Cdigital-text%2C71&sr=1-1-catcorr

You have zero respect for your employees. That’s perfectly clear! My boss has been absolutely brilliant, has told all of us not to worry, and if we need to work from home trusts and respects us to do our job. It’s a two way thing, goodwill.

The way you speak about your colleagues and teachers makes me believe you are just not a nice person, and I’d hate to sit through one of your meetings.

I completely agree with PP about the nature of this ‘boss’.
I’d also like to suggest how unprofessional it is to ‘share’ her feelings about colleagues on a public forum.
I hope the employees pay her compassion forwards with shit performance!