What's Wrong with People? (Still Being Rhetorical Here)

Is it that people don't pay attention? Or that they can't pay attention (as in 'I'm de-evolving, don't be too harsh with me)?

Honestly, I don't know - and I don't care. All I see is that the results bug me - quite a lot.

Just today...

I got to job#1, opened the door to my classroom and... my raised-in-a-barn colleague had moved tables (and not bothered to put them back because that's so bloody tiring and takes soooooo long [insert massive snort and a wish to frell one of his knees here]). That's one thing - incidentally, I left the tables where they are because I'm not a man with a van.

Then, I turned to our common white board, and... [drum-roll, please] both sides had things written on them. In full Carolyn Knapp-Shappey mode, I wiped clean the side with fewer stuff, and I wiped a square on the other side, in the middle, and in a nice red square, I asked him to wipe the thing. Ta, muchly!

If his plonkerish highness doesn't wipe our board next week, the next message shall be: 'I'M NOT YOUR MAID!!!'

He could be the Viceroy of India - I don't care. I wipe the board when I leave, I'm not paid to do it for him. Bloody Neanderthal.

Icing on the cake: the students. Monday's lot was fantabulous; when I told them it was the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, they asked me question about it, and we ended up working on Jane Austen, and a bit of Shakespeare and Dickens on the side. It was extremely productive.

Today's lot: chatting, drawing cutesy stuff on the important paper I'd just given them, not taking down notes and using their mobiles whilst I've clearly forbidden it. They're all over 18, but I think it'd be quieter to deal with a whole nursery school!

Next week, I predict some growling - to begin with.

And this week's cherry on the icing goes to job#3 and to the gal who doesn't understand that I told her that I've deleted a few files in one particular folder.

It went:

Her: where's the rest of the stuff?

Me: I deleted a few things.

Her: I thought something was missing, but if you say the folder's complete.

*blink*

Me: *head DESK*

May I move to Vulcan now? Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!

What's Wrong with People? (Purely Rhetorical)

Things are a little weird these days, and I think it's not because I'm old-fashioned (or even an old bat), but there's something strange in the air.

First, just today, I had an appointment with a colleague. I rushed to make it early to work, and... my colleague was off for the day. I'm not going to start growling just yet, but I hope he'll apologize when we meet next.

Since I don't know why he ended up taking a day off whilst it wasn't planned, perhaps there was something big that happened to him and that made him forget our appointment entirely, but if he took off to go play the ponies, I'll definitely growl.

Yet, pardon me for being old-fashioned, but our other colleagues didn't imply any huge emergency (dead parent or sick child) and I want to believe that I'd have sent a message to warn a colleague and cancel an appointment (the one that went down the drain was rather important, and he'd insisted on planning it - can you read I'm disappointed?).

Then, there's my boiler that's scheduled for a cleaning session next week. When will the cleaning guy come? "Morning". Mind you, it's better than a few years ago when the company that does that in my building just gave us a day and it was basically "expect us between 8am and 6pm". Yet... When does their "morning" start now? 8am? 9am? It'd be nice to know - because it'd be nice, and because I'm not a morning person and I'd like to know when I'll have to drag myself out of bed in order to be ready to open the door to the plumber.

It'd be nice to get a clear window of time, but I guess it'd be too much planning for them (Imagine! Knowing exactly when you'll work in a specific building! *fake gasp*).

And then, there's my students. My own lil' adults to teach and help.

Most of them are absolutely charming, working hard and making me happy to be a teacher.

The others...

Well, when they arrive late for class, they think it's not an issue (a class doesn't start just for you when you finally show up, thirty minutes after the official beginning of it).

When they're glued to their mobiles, they don't see how impolite it is.

When they don't take notes when I give them some vocabulary, some grammar, some data about history/geography/culture/anything, they're wasting my time (I always end up having to repeat these things).

A few of the "weird bunnies" even are as bold as to draw intricate pictures right under my nose (because learning English is so useless in today's world in their minds).

The icing on the cake is when some of them chat in class (because whatever they have to say is so much more important than anything I'm trying to teach them). The cherry on the icing on that cake is that a few look annoyed when I dare to shush them a second time (how dare I interrupt them?).

The "weird bunnies" are a minority, but they're so incredibly irritating. In fact, they're so irritating that I've decided to change the way I work, and I'll punish them (even though they're young adults [*cough* on the paper, at least *cough*]) each time they don't follow my rules. I'd hoped that telling them to behave would kick-start their brains and make them act decently, but I was mistaken.

Apparently, it's past midnight and someone watered my Mogwais. Well, too bad for the class-gremlins, when annoyed, my inner Mrs Hyde gets out [It's hell to get her back into her box, but it's worth it].

Perhaps I'm very tired and I notice odd things and behaviours more... Or there's something barmy in the air.

Well, I seem to have found my inner Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, too, and I'm not putting that one back into any box - I like her.

Permission to Be Scared? (A Bit)

After a look at the "audience" on my Stats page, I know that it could well be a translation problem, but you'll allow me to be just a tad scared, or worried, about the Search Keywords that were used and ended up sending people to this blog.

Here's why:

I must say that I find the first one particularly odd.

Somehow, I fear my sordid fairy tales were not the kind of entry they were looking for...

Welcome to Earth, barmy planet extraordinaire!

Of Plonkers and Cowards

What a beginning for 2013! (Happy New Year, by the way!)

I'm dealing with weird bunnies.

First, one minor thing, but one that's grating on my nerves because I was taught to not do that: one of my colleagues (always the same bloke) cannot be bothered to wipe the white board in the classroom that we share.

I asked the administrative staff if others had complained about him, and it turns out that he's morphing into a weird bloke. I told the gals in the office that I'm very tempted to write on the board "I'm not your maid" and they all approved.

Now... since I'm a silly bunny who's been taught (brainwashed?) to be discreet, I haven't done that yet, but tonight... Tonight I blew a fuse.

He'd left one side of the board (it's one of the ones on "legs" and that can rotate) full. I growled, turned it to the clean side and used that one. Before leaving, I erased my side and turned it back, and then... I read what he'd written, and there, waiting for my red pen, there was a magnificent grammar mistake - and one of my pet peeves in grammar: a decade (plural) with an apostrophe just before the "s" (as if it were a Saxon genitive).

I circled the mistake and admired my work.

I added an exclamation mark for good measure.

And I left.

Now, I'm not sure he'll notice - or he'll see his mistake - or he'll understand the message... and I felt a tad childish, but he bugs me, and so I've decided that if the board isn't clean next time, I shall write that I'm not his maid in order for him to realize that the charming man who cleans the room doesn't deal with the board (perhaps because he thinks we might need the notes for another lesson, or because it's not in his job description, or whatever. Bottom line, he's not erasing my colleague's writing; I am).

Plonker. Off my chest.

Cowards now.

My mother has a heart condition, and all her neighbours know it. What do they do about it? 

C'mon! Make a guess.

They stress her (which might well turn me into an orphan, thanks to their stupidity).

They stress her when I'm not around (one of the local twats has had his nuts half-chewed by me a few years ago, and Mother is convinced that he's afraid of me now - good for him; it shows that he's not completely stupid).

Today, one worker arrived to do some work for another neighbour, but he'd forgotten to warn her, and he took her for granted, and he may have complained to the owner of the neighbouring house about the "mean old lady".

Mother tried to phone the owner (the house is rented, and they live in another area), but the lady she reached assured her that she wasn't the owner.

Mother is going to investigate and try to find the phone number.

If it turns out that it was the correct number and the "lady" is the one I met and she lied to my mother. I'm going to turn into a nice lil' Vesuvius. Again.

Mother said she was getting used to the new house, but there are days when I wish she'd sell and move to a more civilized part of the country. She settled on a nest of nuts (and that's an insult to nuts).

If the happy cowards think they can bother my mother because she's not well and living on her own - they've got a Dru coming. I can growl on the phone and read them the riot act when I'm there - no problem at all.

I think I'm going to need a bit of training, but I think I'm done being nice.

Being nice doesn't work in today's world.