I am not at my best on a Superintendent's Conference Day.
I am in an environment where every fiber of my being is either sharply in-tuned to (A) creating lesson plans, hopelessly re-arranging my learning environment to find that perfect equation to minimize chatter and distractions to best focus attention, and grading assignments OR (B) shenanigans.
I swear that I read the obituary...I mean...itinerary.
"This isn't a death sentence OR a vacation, Amy," I was informed by a wary administrator as I stumbled, blearily, into the auditorium at 7:30 a.m. "If you'd read the AGENDA, you would know that coffee would be available after the Morning Meeting." I gasped. How was I going to manage the next 45 minute caffeine-free, pastry-less existence? Fortunately, another administrator wandered by with a comfort animal. Cocker Spaniel kisses make everything better.
So do snacks.
My 4th grade team knows that my ratio of whining resistance to reluctant productivity is greatly impacted by the availability of snacks. Superintendent Day conferences have been much more palatable with a table decorated with desserts. Allison worried that her kind offering of a colorful veggie tray might cause me to spiral. Not at all. Instead, I stomped all over the building, announcing that Allison had included nine cherry tomatoes in her colorful cornucopia and I had claimed all of them. "I do have a mild allergy to tomatoes," I warned my somewhat alarmed team. "What happens?" they asked as I popped two cherry tomatoes in my mouth. I waved my hand dismissively. "My throat scratches a bit accompanied by a little swelling." Allison looked horrified. "I would be the one responsible for killing Amy Mosiman." Katriel shrugged before attempting to reassure her. "You could be hailed as a hero...depending on the day."
She wasn't wrong.
I had already denied personnel access to the building as I gallantly stood in during the school secretary's momentary absence. "Amy," my administrator snapped, intervening as I interrogated this questionable visitor, "Betty has worked at our school for eight years. And why aren't you on your Zoom call meeting?"
Oops.
"I'm meeting with the head of maintenance," I explained, disappearing before she could ask why.
My OCD had triggered early this morning when I noticed a heating duct cover mounted on the wall was crooked. Surely, someone needed to be alerted.
Then I noticed that ALL of the remaining trees in the courtyard
(minus, of course, the one they'd heartlessly cut down the minute I'd left the building at the end of last school year because they KNEW I'd chain myself to it) were devoid of leaves. Strange for Fall? No. But WHERE WERE ALL OF THE
FALLEN LEAVES??? Not a single leaf littered the ground. I was in that courtyard EVERY day...reluctantly feeding the Welfare birds and poking my decomposing puffball. I had not witnessed the appearance of a single rake or heard the racket of a leaf blower. This mystery obviously trumped a Zoom meeting.
During my hunt for the head of maintenance (pausing at the drinking fountain to soothe my scratchy throat), I found TWO secret doors. One led me to a secret passage to the cafeteria where I helpfully oversaw Tony's work repairing the industrial stove. He pointed out another secret door that he was certain would lead me to Todd...imagine my surprise when I found myself outside the building. And then my administrator refused to buzz me back in until I promised to return to my Zoom meeting.
I returned to my room full of snacks...inventoried my cherry tomatoes...and then collapsed back into my cushioned chair to sulk (after grappling a throat lozenge).
It was here...at this moment in time...that I would later discover that I had ultimately been betrayed by my team.
Stay with me.
Our computer Shared Drive folders can be decoratively enhanced...with either a boring prefabricated background or you can...if you have the patience of Job and endless time on your hands...personalize the folder with a photo.
I had discovered this option years ago and happily devoted hours of my life to putting meaningful snapshots of my team-mates on the covers. It was an exasperating business. Using an infuriatingly inaccurate crop-box as your guide, it would take ten to ten-thousand tries to capture the fraction of the photo allotted for the folder. This process would inevitably be accompanied by frustrated screaming and the occasional flinging of technology upon the floor or against the wall. But persistence pays off. My latest artistic endeavor had Katriel's image, captured for months, as she raced along a highway meridian, searching for an item that had been sucked out a school bus window.
Then, imagine my surprise...my horror...and then my delight, when I discovered the Shared Drive folder had been updated with my own petulant pose. I immediately changed it (of course) but spent the remainder of the day smiling...reveling in the compliment attached to such an utter waste-of-time action. I spent needless hours trying to capture Marissa flipping her hair but it surpassed my skill level so I had to settle for a far-too-attractive picture of Allison lounging by Lake Ontario. Trust me...it's only a temporary filler. Leaving a lovely photo up on a Google Drive Folder is just too hard to swallow.
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