Tag: workload

In which arrrrrrrghhhhhhhh

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy2 Comments

WHEEEEEEEI’m bad at Sunday.  It’s consistently– say, nine weeks out of ten– the only day of the week where I don’t have to go to work without calling in sick first, so you would think that I would treasure them as the one day where I Get To Relax.  No.  What Sunday actually represents is The One Day I Have to Get Every Single Fucking Thing in My Life Done, Including All the School Stuff I’ve Put Off, Since God Forbid There’s a Single Day a Week where I Don’t Work for School; Also, Get to Work, You’re Wasting Time you Lazy Bastard.

I have a verb for it.  I call it Sundaying.  It’s where I’m so stressed out and paralyzed by all the shit I didn’t do all week because I was fucking exhausted that I do nothing all day Sunday but obsess about the fact that I’m wasting my Sunday and that tomorrow I have to go back to work.  Low-level stress, constantly, that occasionally pirouettes into brief bursts of high-level stress.

I’m going to go to a movie today (Thor, of course) and then have dinner in a restaurant without my son and with my wife.  I’ve gotten a couple of things done this morning– most notably, managed to be out of bed, showered, and breakfasted before ten and finally, finally gotten both of the car seats readjusted so that we’re not pinching the boy’s shoulders every time we put him in the car.  When we get home, I have two computers to fix (fun fact: my wife and my father-in-law both have basically the exact same computer, bought around the same time.  They both shit out this week, for what appear to be different reasons, although both of them appear mechanical and not software-related in nature) and all the weekend’s grading to do and some PAT team stuff to do and lesson plans to write (oh, hey! I got that done at OtherJob!) and and and and and and and. Hopefully I’ll get time to read a couple volumes of Sandman and maybe, just maybe, watch the episodes of S.H.I.E.L.D. and American Horror Story: Coven that we haven’t gotten to this week.

Maybe.

We’ll see.

Or maybe I’ll spend the whole movie obsessing about the fact that I’m not at home doing those several things and be stressed out and ruin it.  That might happen too!

Sigh.

Also:  Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers came out twenty fucking years ago this weekend, and jesus god am I old.

In which WHY AM I NOT SLEEPING

On By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

20130819-165458.jpgI’m writing this at Otherjob on Monday night. I’m going to try not to die while I’m doing it.

I got to school with 45 items on the To-Do List of Doom; by the time I’d made it from the front door of the building to my classroom it was up to 48. Like, seriously, walking down the hallway people gave me three more things to do. The list stands at 27 right now and I’m hoping to have it down to 23 or 24 by the end of the night. Hopefully we won’t be busy. (EDIT: Down to 22, only one or two of which can feasibly be done here, and I don’t feel like them. I’ve done well today.)

The manager has me scheduled until “close” and the sixteen year old kid I’m working with scheduled until 11:00, which is odd, since I’m closing this place down at ten o’clock if my life depends on it. Tomorrow’s the last day until the kids arrive and, for the first time since June, I’m actually getting paid to be there– which, of course, means that I need to be there at 7:15. No way in hell am I gonna make it to work at 7:15 if I’m at work until past eleven.

Parent night is at 5:00. I have until then to convince myself that I know how to do this. I’m in good shape, but it’s still gonna be pushing it.

Lotta stuff to get done today. Let’s hope for very few meetings.

In which I love you, really, I swear

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment

20130816-163401.jpgEffective immediately, there is going to be a large and angry Viking armed with several sharp and spiky implements of bodily destruction guarding the door to my classroom. If you happen to need or want anything from me, that’s fine; you just have to get by Sven. His name will be Sven; I just decided that. I may feed him some LSD from time to time, too; don’t worry about that. Norsemen don’t get addicted to things.

This is honest truth: I don’t mind helping people in my building with things. It’s part of my damn job. But holy shit. I got nothing at all done yesterday, and with two work days left until the school year starts (after which point, as every teacher knows, nothing organizational will get done until December) I am seriously running up against the limits of how much any sensible human being can get done in the time I have left, and I have much much more to do this year than I ordinarily would at the beginning of the school year. I’ve said it before, many times: the week before school starts is my busiest week of the year, and this week has been substantially worse than usual in terms of how much I’ve had to do and how few hours I’ve had to do it in. The crowning moment of yesterday’s ridiculousness came when my former assistant principal called me from his new job to ask me something about a spreadsheet I’d created for him to keep track of disciplinary issues. While I was answering his questions for him (which quickly devolved into me saying “email it to me; I’ll fix it and send it back, because that will be quicker”) my current assistant principal came into my room… to ask me about the exact same spreadsheet.

And, again, because 1) it’s true and 2) I know my co-workers read this: I don’t mind. I really truly honestly and totally am happy to help people when they need help from me. But I also don’t want my kids skinning me and dancing on my corpse next week because I didn’t manage to get ready for the new school year properly, and I’m down to two days to get about four days of work done. Thus: my new friend Sven.

He’ll be answering the phone and handling my email, too, by the way.

(For real, though: I was in my classroom for about 2 1/2 hours today, because I was on Daddy Duty this morning and couldn’t get in before early afternoon, and then had to cut out before I wanted to because it’s Friday and the building was closing a bit earlier than usual. In that two and a half hours I got about six hours of work done, and still looked around before I left my room and could only see shit that I still had left to do. And, unfortunately, money that I had to spend, too. Christ, the last few weeks have been expensive.)

UPDATE: About fifteen minutes ago I took advantage of it being slow time at OtherJob, opened up Wunderlist on the iPad, and started putting together a to-do list for Monday and Tuesday. It is currently at 38 items, and that is not because I went crazy breaking things up into subtasks. Fifteen. Minutes. Ago. I’m sure it will increase in size by at least 50% by the end of the night.

SECOND UPDATE: Item #39? “Write lesson plans.” Oh, right, I have to do that too.