AIBU to tell team members to forfeit their breaks

[Suedesofblue]

Team member 1: came unprepared to meeting and needed to use one of my pens. Unprofessional. She is being groomed for a role in another office where manager would definitely make her forfeit her breaks for that, so it’s important she learns now.

Team member 2: Left annotated document at home which means I have to fit it in tomorrow instead of today. It is only five minutes of work, but again that’s not the point. They should have remembered.

Team member 3: Briefing team and a team member takes his suit jacket off in the middle of it, which meant I had no choice but to disrupt the meeting for everyone in order to apprehend him.

I always appreciate the "lack of pen" points from posters.

I stopped giving out pens, I either never got them back or what I did get back was unusable.

As for those that posted "just go to the stationary cupboard". Most places that I have worked at don't have one that isn't guarded by someone and everything needed to be signed out, or in one case they put security cameras in because of the high amount of theft.

I’m a teacher of 35 years (now retired). I tended not to keep kids in at break because it had the knock on of depriving me of my break (and opportunity for warm drink and a wee) but you don’t think it’s unreasonable with seniors to keep them back to discuss their behaviour.

Wonders what a work break is......

You don’t expect adults to meet deadlines and bring their equipment?

Is this for real? Or are you insane? I wouldn’t work for you.

I basically never comment on Mumsnet but I feel I have to here. The way you are treating people is not okay and you really need to take some management training if you want to continue to manage people. You should also familiarise yourself with employment laws to ensure you aren’t putting your company in breach with this treatment

I think the point that OP is trying to make is that low-level misbehaviour is punished excessively in schools in ways which would be unacceptable in the workplace. But I think this is wrong:

I'm a barrister. I'm not allowed to take my blazer off in court without permission (not offered unless it is sweltering). I can think of any number of other jobs where uniform is mandatory. As it happens, I don't see why school uniforms require them - but they do in some places, just as some professions do.

Similarly, if I submit a document to the court past deadline, the consequences for me/my client can be more severe than 5 minutes off break. My mate's a hospital doctor: if she doesn't submit her scanning /blood requests on time, consequences can be fatal.

As for pens - plenty of professions where if you don't bring your equipment/tools, that's a you problem. Would you pay the window cleaner who forgot his ladder?

Are you a teacher or an unhappy parent? Why can’t people just say or ask what they mean, why make it complicated

What the hell are you on about?

Is this some kind of a joke? Because if you treat people this way. No wonder staff have anxiety. You. Are. A. Bully. Of the worst kind. Because this is the adult world and not School where these things albeit bad tend to happen.
You need therapy.

Voted 'you are not being unreasonable' because this is very clearly sattire.

You had to disrupt the meeting to apprehend the guy,who took his jacket off,maybe because he was too hot.for goodness sake give and take a little.or has it all gone to your head being in charge.

It’s not satire. It’s a rubbish false equivalence.

This is a joke right? A joke post? I hope so because you need scaling if you are a manager. Disgusting behaviour from you. Get a grip!

Just talk about the stuff you want to talk about. Don’t do all this shit instead.
Also if you have a beef about behaviour then check out the schools behaviour policy. If you don’t agree with it then move your child. Simple innit.

For those who haven't twigged the OP is making a point about how children are treated in schools by using a set of false equivalences.

I suspect that the OP has a child who has been punished unfairly in their view and is absolutely furious.

OP it really isn't the same, you do see that, don't you?

For example, does your manager have to find you clean clothes and help you get changed when you wet yourself?

Do they have to stop you and a colleague fighting over who gets to use a favourite piece of equipment next?

Does your manager have to check that you and your colleagues haven't put small pieces of equipment into your pockets to take home?

Do you or any of your colleagues cry and ask your manager if it's nearly hometime on a regular basis?

If you have a problem with the school be a grown up and communicate with them about it.

🤣🤣🤣

Have you used your team members glue OP?

The last time you were in a school was probably around 1995 wasn’t it?

Wow. Lots of comments. I haven’t had a chance to look through them all.

Yes, I did mean reprimand.

DD is in Y5 so we’ve been going to senior school open days, which are a bit of an eye opener.

Interesting that some of the comments assumed I was talking about senior school.
With the exception of the blazer, everything I referenced was from primary.

My daughter lost her break for forgetting her homework. She had stayed up to get it done the evening before (we had got home from viewing a school a lot later than anticipated). I’d actually put it in her bag, so felt guilty as assumed DD would see it. It was wet play, so she had to sit in the corridor hearing her friends playing in the classroom. The teacher said she’d lose her break as that’s what happens at senior school. Senior school is two years away. That punishment will not make a jot of difference to whether DD forgot her homework or not. DD accepted the punishment, end of. I accept it too, but also know it’s a pointless punishment for her.

There’s a table outside of the dining hall where children have to do “thinking sheets”. Part of it is the ritual humiliation of however many classes queuing up next to them seeing they’ve been punished. It’s the same for variations on public RAG charts or sticking a five year old in a year 6 class.

Peer pressure talks on one day, yet whole class punishments another - bit contradictory.

Schools preferring a dentist appointment after the register is taken, whilst then going on about the importance of attendance sounds hollow. Similarly for wanting unwell children to come in and make other kids unwell before being sent home, so that overall learning is reduced. Some firms do that too, but it pisses a lot of people off and again focuses on boxticking above value.

Forgetting a pen and deliberately damaging equipment are two very separate things. Swearing at a teacher, being violent or really disruptive are completely different things to making a drama over whether or not someone can take a blazer off.

Are schools woefully underfunded - yes. Are teachers stressed, overworked and having the joy sucked out of their profession - yes. Is there not enough support for children who need it and are teachers/schools struggling to cope with that - yes. Are teachers and children both showing similar levels of increased absence due to health issues/illness since pre-covid - yes.

Are kids having to shoulder a lot of the fallout of all this - definitely. I’m not sure ridiculously petty rules help that.

Presumably this post is a joke?! You aren't really treating your staff like infallible robots who have unexplainably malfunctioned are you? You would need to lose your job if you are...!

So why all the bollox about work? What you just put there made perfect sense

Ok I've caught up now...given that was my response to thinking it was an adult team you can guess that the words I want to type now are too rude for Mumsnet...

I don't think schools penalise kids for having being in hospital!
I think you are trying to over simplify a lot of what school teachers have to deal with!
I'm pretty sure schools aren't going to penalise a student for getting warm and taking a blazer off in class.

The toilet thing is difficult but if they aren't careful with in secondary school in particular, they'll have girls pissing around doing hair and make up in there, kids vaping and all sorts instead of being in class.

If you want to liken it to workplaces then yes, kids need to learn to sit down and get on with what they have to do without being disruptive to everyone else, without being loud, abusive or threatening harm because if they try that in a workplace they'll be sacked for misconduct.

You’re so right. Schools are becoming hostile, and not child centred . We’re all being bullied to death. Yes , attendance, focus, ambition, behaviour has all took a dive post pandemic. Parents know that life is more important than being worked to death. If we took a nurturing approach to putting the ills of the pandemic right rather than punishing and bullying…. I 100% believe in calm respectful conduct but let’s be honest, I have forgotten my reading glasses or my carefully annotated text and I’ve needed to go to loo in lesson and wanted to take my jacket off and had computer issues that have stopped the learning for a minute. No one in schools, teachers or kids , are allowed to be human anymore.