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.

Is this post an actual joke or click bait? These examples are so minor in terms of the behaviours and the effect, they’re not even worth actioning. Not sure why someone taking their jacket off is so problematic either, unless I’m missing something here?

edit: I’ve just seen subsequent posts make the comparison to behaviours in school. I think some of the school rules are overkill too but there’s one thing which is very important here. You are giving examples of a one off occasion. One off mistakes are different from a pattern of behaviour in any setting.

Repeatedly doing these things might get a person having disciplinary action (failing to have appropriate documents for a meeting for instance) or at least hinder their chances for promotion.

Are you a teacher? If so, you need to work on your writing skills!

If I made a monumental error, I’d expect to be hauled over the coals or fired.

If I repeatedly made errors, didn’t meet deadlines or kept turning up late, I’d expect to be pulled up on it. If I forgot a pen? Come on.

I don’t understand how it’s less disruptive to ask if you can take a blazer off, rather than just taking it off.

With homework, we are told that they’re still little, let them get on with it, but give guidance as necessary. However, a child can come home on the last day of term with homework needing a lot of parental involvement and shopping, to be handed in for the first day back and told “no excuses”. It puts children in horrible positions, giving them all the accountability for a lot of stuff out of their control. It also pisses parents off.

A part of a DCs homework this week is a parent reading a few chapters of a specified book to them. The teacher usually reads it in class, but it didn’t happen this week. Will a child be penalised for not doing that part of their homework if their parent doesn’t/can’t read it?

One of my DCs came home with a book in infant school. It was a story about a boy that bullied other children and called them names. What do you say to a seven year old when they tell you their teacher calls some people in class the same name? How do you explain it?

I also can’t think of a profession (including teaching) where if you want a day off outside of mandated dates within a 14 year period, it would be unauthorised.

Kids forgot stuff all the time when I was at school and if it was regular it would be a cause for concern and help not punishment. This sort of treatment just entrenches meanness, intolerance and inequality and it goes hand in hand with zero tolerance of people on benefits, mental health problems and immigrants. All part of the same horrible coin.

Hear hear.

In most cases that you have stated, there are funds available that the school uses to provide equipment for the pupils.
Over the years schools have provided pencil cases for many pupils which are kept in the separate classes (secondary education).

At the end of the day are you really saying that all schools go berserk at a child taking a blazer off in class? I find that hard to believe.

The pen thing is going to annoy teachers if there's disruption at the beginning of every lesson where they have to go and find pens for kids that don't turn up prepared - they've not been back at school long, where's the pencil cases that parents normally buy for going back to school with? I had a pencil case, I had one of those sets with a compass and protractor in - why are you not providing this?

Homework is part of life, we all had it unfortunately but I don't remember having to get my parents involved in it! Is the issue that your kids aren't sitting down and focusing at school or at home?

And if you as parent can't be bothered to spend 30 minutes reading with your kid then that's awful because when I was little coming home with books and spelling tests both my parents helped me because they were also keen for me to learn to read.

It feels like you are crying about having to be responsible for anything! You don't honest context to anything so nothing rings true! Maybe the issue is your kids and you not wanting to do any parenting at home.

As for the holidays, the problem they have now is that too many kids are disruptive and too many developmentally delayed due to poor parenting so it's less sustainable now to let kids be in and out of school anytime they want because too many would struggle to catch up and that drains the time of teacher from the other kids when they are trying to get kids thay have been away back in focus. Failures in parenting brought it to this unfortunately! I used to be taken out in term time when I was a kid but back then, classrooms weren't full of disruptive kids or kids that struggled with basics because they weren't parented before starting school. People could come back off a holiday and easily sit down and crack on without issue.

The poster explained many pages back that she's severely dyslexic. Perhaps you'd like to apologise?

OP, this thread would have been much more constructive if you'd just addressed overly strict measures in school rather than the analogy with work. Adults and children behave differently. Let me give you an example: an adult can have a water bottle on their desk and take occasional drinks, no problem. A child in either primary or secondary will tap on it, continually suck from it, scrunching the plastic loudly, spill it, have a row with someone about letting them have some, ask to go and refill it at the exact point the concept of the lesson is being explained, use it as a delaying tactic to avoid difficult work, clutter up the desk with and their neighbour will shove it over, knock it on the floor or just take it.

Another: sitting in a different seat.among adults, hotdesking is largely disliked and we all like our own space but if you arrive and someone is in your favourite spot, you just go elsewhere. If a child in a classroom does that it becomes a whole merry go round of other people moving and X doesn't want to sit with Y and I don't want Y on the same table as D and if A in the sightline of P they'll spend all lesson smirking and mouthing across to each other about M. You simply cannot compare.

I said upthread that I teach at a v strict independent school. At a theatre trip this week we got several compliments from members of the public that our kids were smart, mannered and well behaved. No rustling of papers or phones. Because we sweat the small stuff, the bigger stuff very rarely happens.

Katherine birbal Singh was on radio 4 yesterday talking about some of the issues raised in this post. I know some think she’s batshit crazy but she makes good points and you can’t deny that outcomes at her school are excellent. Sorry, not sure I’m contributing much to this post but I’m in agreement with pp who talked of sweating the small stuff.

They are just normal 7 year olds give them a break, or maybe teaching isn't for you

Who is that aimed at?

The problem with your posts though was the very stupid comparison to a workplace. It falls apart on that - this post would be a much more productive place to start it from. You can't compare because the workplace is selective - everyone went through a hiring process - you can fire people far more easily than you can permanently exclude pupils, and staff generally depend on their wage so see a much clearer incentive to conform (they have bills to pay!). So you are never going to see the behaviour and disruption in an office that you do in a classroom so the same rules cannot apply.

When I was teaching, I'd say at the start of my first lesson with every class that I was giving blanket permission to take blazers and jumpers off so they never needed to ask. I replenished my drawer of pens at my own expense all the time (and they got chewed, broken, taken to pieces and ink smeared all over the desks on a frequent basis). Kids asking to go to the toilet was one of the factors that drove me out of the profession: we had suicide attempts, sex, drugs and truancy take place in the toilets during lesson time, not to mention the kids who if allowed up from their seat would walk out the room hitting other kids on the head as they passed and then race down the corridor kicking doors and screaming as they went. Then immediately ask to go again when they came back and threaten to piss all over the room if refused - or piss on me. I was so distressed by one of the sexual incidents (thankfully not one I'd given the toilet permission for) because the girl was so vulnerable. It broke my heart these things happened when we were supposed to be taking care of these children. Every time I had to make the judgement call - do I let this pupil go when they ask or not? I would feel so anxious. And if you let one kid go, every kid asks and you have a revolving door out your classroom. How do you say no to the suicide/self harm risk when you just said yes to someone else? And all i wanted to do was help these children bloody learn! You think the least disruptive solution is 'a quick nod' and you scoff at the idea of chaos ensuing - you have no idea, none at all.

Schools are not places of employment for their pupils and you sound like "that parent" on steroids.

This is a parody surely

You sound a nightmare!

You sound like you're going to make yourself very unpopular.
Reprimanding someone for taking off their jacket ?
It's batshit behaviour