Lesson 17

Communication is an awesome thing. Assumptions are not.


There is one teacher at my school who I've already had a lot of trouble getting along with. I'm told this is the most pleasant she's ever been. Her tone is generally condescending - according to Holly, working at the school two years longer than us might have something to do with it. Tara is the teacher who taught the math/science class for eight months and didn't want to help me because she didn't want to do extra work. She's also the teacher who told us that our Christmas Eve vacation had been revoked.

We planned to meet with Julia (our boss) at 1:30 during our break and told her we wanted David (the owner of the school/Julia's boss) to be there too, if possible. We asked Tara if she'd be coming with us. She says in her best teacher voice, speaking slowly and enunciating as if we were her ESL students, "Well, honestly it's not going to make a difference. Julia isn't going to be able to do anything about it. David most likely won't be there and he's the one in charge. But I really think it's great that you all believe in this so strongly and that you're all working together as a team." And she turns back to her computer. Kelsey was sitting across from me, her back to Tara, and gave me a look that can only be described as "WTF?"


No one said anything, so I spoke up - it was just obnoxious of her to say something like that. So I tell her: "Even if David isn't going to be there, we need to speak up. It's not professional for them to revoke our vacation time and not notify us. All of us need to be at this meeting and discuss this professionally so we can get this figured out. David's absence does not determine whether or not we speak with Julia." Silence. Holly mouthed "thank you" to me.


We go to the meeting at 1:30 and David's not there. Kristen asks if he will be coming to the meeting and Julia says no. Tara shoots me and Kristen the "I told you so" look. Julia hands out a schedule to us and explains how each semester works. How many classes we're supposed to have per semester, which days are activity days, etc. Lastly, she explains our vacations and days off for the next three semesters. Our winter/Christmas vacation is from December 24th until January 1st. Every single teacher in the room (except Tara) sighs with relief. Kristen says, "Oh. I guess that settles it then. That was simple."


But Tara doesn't think it's that simple and she starts retelling the tale of May vacation when the teachers got an extra day of vacation and were told that they wouldn't have Christmas Eve off. Poor Julia was trying to follow along and looked totally lost (English isn't her first language). She shakes her head and explains that she sat down this morning and counted out every single day and made the semester chart just to be sure that there were no mistakes. But Tara still isn't happy and presses on: "But David told us that we definitely would not have Christmas Eve off, so why is it changing?" Julia finally explains that David's not in charge of dictating when we get vacation. So there was never a problem in the first place.


We thank Julia and go back to our desks, happy that we won't be working the day before Christmas.