The after effects of the truly grisly and horrendous meeting last night (I don’t want to talk about it) were seen in the grey faces of the survivors who walked blankly to lessons this morning.
I am building up my resentment for ANOTHER Saturday morning meeting of the staff to witter on about the older students. When I think about The Worst Bank in the World not giving me back the money they have taken under false pretences and a meeting outside the normal teaching week and the rain – I could despair.
However, there is a visit impending when Ceri and Dianne will descend upon our part of Castelldefels and I am collecting names of decent restaurants in Barcelona so that we can have a gastronomically satisfactory time!
There is also the question of viewpoint. Ceri, it would appear, is looking forward to seeing Barcelona from a bird’s eye view to see how interesting a vista of rooftops might be. I hope that he is going to produce drawings and paintings: this will be something of a departure from his recent work, but I look forward to such developments.
This has meant that I have put fairly strange requests to my colleagues about where to stand in Barcelona to give the perspective that Ceri requires. We have come down to the stalwart Gaudi building whose roof is one of the architectural glories of this part of the world.
Another suggestion was the Columbus statue which, I now understand has a life in it and what must be panoramic views. Our school also has commanding views of Barcelona, while from a neighbouring hill there is more Gaudi and even more spectacular views. But we will have to wait to see exactly what Ceri is after. I hope it produces something saleable!
The weather continues to be absolutely despicable. There is a quality in the present slew of bad days which has something in common with the weather of my native land – though there are glimpses of fugitive Spanish sunshine to keep some sort of shreds of faith in the belief that the summer will, eventually, come.
It is of little comfort to me that Toni describes this summer as the worst that he has ever known: I want sunshine (and lots of it) now!
As I am getting no sun I am feeling the lure of an Irrelevant Electronic Gadget Purchase – I suppose that this qualifies as a little retail therapy for me. The real problem is that I am positively replete with electronics with the result that every trailing multi -socket looks as though it is being consumed by multiple writhing serpents all of whom have sunk their fangs into the electricity supply.
Not many of these serpentine monsters have devices attached to their length. Indeed for some of them I have little idea which device is supposed to be fitted to them. The logic would therefore be that I at least either find out whether the devices I have begging for power will fit or else at least take them off and save power.
But there is a higher logic which says that if you even think about “putting pieces of electronic equipment away” then at least half of the things that need power will immediately fail and you will never find the correct power source again ever! True!
We went out to the Worst Bank in the World to see if by any chance they had repaid the money they had taken unjustly and dishonestly. No change there: they preserve their putrid record with ease!
What was more pleasant (and a clear example of good customer relations) was in our local bar/restaurant and I had a free meal. On the back of the business card of the establishment there is a grid for the waiter to sign each time you have a meal. After eight signatures you are entitled to a free meal! So near to BBVA (just around the corner) but so far from them in terms of making their customers loyal, rather than mutinously homicidal!
Talking of mutiny we have a spate of absences in school at the moment and the head of making people do more work than they are paid for is frantically looking for free periods in our ridiculously long day to fill any vacant spaces.
It never enters their tiny heads that it might be a good thing to employ a supply teacher. One science teacher is absent, probably with the flu and is likely to be absent for the better part of the week, but no move has been made to find somebody to take her place.
Oh no, unthinkable while there are teachers who can take her lessons and classes that can be collapsed then nothing will be done to lessen the load on colleagues. Although the senior staff involved are nice enough their way of thinking is not about their colleagues. They cringe in apology when you lose a non contact period but they do nothing (nothing!) to stop it happening.
Although most (amazingly not all) staff moan and groan about the way that cover is organized, no one does anything about it.
There are truly glaring faults in the way in which our school is organized and run, but without an effective trade union base for discussion it is easy to marginalize people and, with a resigned shrug and a nervous little chuckle consign valid questioning of how things are done to oblivion.
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the laissez faire attitude which is the predominant one in school. Wear resignation is not my usual response to obvious injustice. I simply wonder if I have the energy or emotional resilience to encourage effective representation.
Having said that my union contact has contacted me and asked if I would be prepared to have a chat with a union representative with a view to boost our membership in school.
Employment law in Spain is such that as far as I can understand the employer has the right to sack you for any reason or none. As long as the correct money is paid (so many days for every year worked) then no one in legal terms is even faintly interested. So a lone teacher pressing for union recognition or increased union membership is basically on a hiding to nothing and is looking to be sacked at the earliest possible opportunity.
While being sacked has its attractions, February is a little too soon in my plans for this to occur!
I think.
I am building up my resentment for ANOTHER Saturday morning meeting of the staff to witter on about the older students. When I think about The Worst Bank in the World not giving me back the money they have taken under false pretences and a meeting outside the normal teaching week and the rain – I could despair.
However, there is a visit impending when Ceri and Dianne will descend upon our part of Castelldefels and I am collecting names of decent restaurants in Barcelona so that we can have a gastronomically satisfactory time!
There is also the question of viewpoint. Ceri, it would appear, is looking forward to seeing Barcelona from a bird’s eye view to see how interesting a vista of rooftops might be. I hope that he is going to produce drawings and paintings: this will be something of a departure from his recent work, but I look forward to such developments.
This has meant that I have put fairly strange requests to my colleagues about where to stand in Barcelona to give the perspective that Ceri requires. We have come down to the stalwart Gaudi building whose roof is one of the architectural glories of this part of the world.
Another suggestion was the Columbus statue which, I now understand has a life in it and what must be panoramic views. Our school also has commanding views of Barcelona, while from a neighbouring hill there is more Gaudi and even more spectacular views. But we will have to wait to see exactly what Ceri is after. I hope it produces something saleable!
The weather continues to be absolutely despicable. There is a quality in the present slew of bad days which has something in common with the weather of my native land – though there are glimpses of fugitive Spanish sunshine to keep some sort of shreds of faith in the belief that the summer will, eventually, come.
It is of little comfort to me that Toni describes this summer as the worst that he has ever known: I want sunshine (and lots of it) now!
As I am getting no sun I am feeling the lure of an Irrelevant Electronic Gadget Purchase – I suppose that this qualifies as a little retail therapy for me. The real problem is that I am positively replete with electronics with the result that every trailing multi -socket looks as though it is being consumed by multiple writhing serpents all of whom have sunk their fangs into the electricity supply.
Not many of these serpentine monsters have devices attached to their length. Indeed for some of them I have little idea which device is supposed to be fitted to them. The logic would therefore be that I at least either find out whether the devices I have begging for power will fit or else at least take them off and save power.
But there is a higher logic which says that if you even think about “putting pieces of electronic equipment away” then at least half of the things that need power will immediately fail and you will never find the correct power source again ever! True!
We went out to the Worst Bank in the World to see if by any chance they had repaid the money they had taken unjustly and dishonestly. No change there: they preserve their putrid record with ease!
What was more pleasant (and a clear example of good customer relations) was in our local bar/restaurant and I had a free meal. On the back of the business card of the establishment there is a grid for the waiter to sign each time you have a meal. After eight signatures you are entitled to a free meal! So near to BBVA (just around the corner) but so far from them in terms of making their customers loyal, rather than mutinously homicidal!
Talking of mutiny we have a spate of absences in school at the moment and the head of making people do more work than they are paid for is frantically looking for free periods in our ridiculously long day to fill any vacant spaces.
It never enters their tiny heads that it might be a good thing to employ a supply teacher. One science teacher is absent, probably with the flu and is likely to be absent for the better part of the week, but no move has been made to find somebody to take her place.
Oh no, unthinkable while there are teachers who can take her lessons and classes that can be collapsed then nothing will be done to lessen the load on colleagues. Although the senior staff involved are nice enough their way of thinking is not about their colleagues. They cringe in apology when you lose a non contact period but they do nothing (nothing!) to stop it happening.
Although most (amazingly not all) staff moan and groan about the way that cover is organized, no one does anything about it.
There are truly glaring faults in the way in which our school is organized and run, but without an effective trade union base for discussion it is easy to marginalize people and, with a resigned shrug and a nervous little chuckle consign valid questioning of how things are done to oblivion.
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the laissez faire attitude which is the predominant one in school. Wear resignation is not my usual response to obvious injustice. I simply wonder if I have the energy or emotional resilience to encourage effective representation.
Having said that my union contact has contacted me and asked if I would be prepared to have a chat with a union representative with a view to boost our membership in school.
Employment law in Spain is such that as far as I can understand the employer has the right to sack you for any reason or none. As long as the correct money is paid (so many days for every year worked) then no one in legal terms is even faintly interested. So a lone teacher pressing for union recognition or increased union membership is basically on a hiding to nothing and is looking to be sacked at the earliest possible opportunity.
While being sacked has its attractions, February is a little too soon in my plans for this to occur!
I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment