Ancient History part 3

Caustic was not a good person to work for.

A small understatement, that. Ugh.

We put off planning for summer for way too long. Every time we brought it up, we were shot down. Flunky said that Caustic said that it was too early and that we wouldn't need extra time to plan.

When we asked about field trips, Flunky, with the gleeful air of someone with a special surprise, told us they had a 'great plan' for our summer trips. Then, they sent out a mass email and told us that we could suggest trips, but that they needed to be on the bus route. Yep. They wanted us to take our kids on public transportation.

I don't know what public transportation is like where you are, but we had huge safety concerns all over the place. I sat down and wrote up a long email, trying to lay it out without being shrill or obnoxious. I just didn't want to expose my children to the types of people one can often see on public transportation.

Here's an excerpt from what I wrote:I have many concerns about us using our public bus service for transportation.
When we use a school bus, the circumstances are mostly under our control. Barring mechanical failure or accident, we can virtually guarantee the safety of our children, which I'm sure you'll agree is our number one priority.

Imagine this scenario:
We're taking our children into a classroom for a lesson. In that classroom is a random sampling of 20 or so people, selected for no particular reason from the surrounding neighborhood and from ten other areas of town.

We don't know their history... whether or not they have a criminal record, whether they're armed, whether they're carrying illegal drugs or what their intentions are. But we're going to distribute the children in our care around the room, seat them next to just anyone, and be confident that nothing will happen?

And if staff members are sitting somewhere that isn't next to the action if something DOES happen, what then?

Without even considering the horrendous things in the news lately regarding our much-vaunted public transit system, just that scenario should give you pause. It is NOT a safe mode of transportation for children, chaperoned or not.

We have absolutely no control over the foul mouthed people who are on the buses and trains at all hours of the day, we have no control over what they're carrying or the safety of any given person to be around children.

When we take a school bus for a field trip, I can look at a parent and confidently assure them that the person driving the bus and every other adult who will be in contact with their child for the trip has been checked to make sure they're okay to be with kids. I know that no one involved in the care of that child will use profanity, will be carrying narcotics or other illegal substances, and that none of us would stand by and let harm come to a child.

If our plan is to put a child on our public transit, I cannot look a parent in the eye and say the same thing. I cannot 'promote field trips with confidence' as I don't believe that exposing our kids to the cross section of humanity one finds on our buses is safe or appropriate.

I don't want to tell the parents of a five year old that that man their little girl sat behind may have looked like a derelict Santa with his big plastic bag and his beard, but smelled like Donner and was maybe just a little bit drunk.

I am concerned that we will lose customers over this, and the reputation we've spent years building in our area will suffer damage as well.

We have built our reputation not only by being the same faces for the children and parents, but by being caregivers who CARE... and our children and parents KNOW this.

There are plenty of ways to cut corners without jeopardizing the safety of the children entrusted to our care. Transportation safety and public transit should not even be in the same sentence, especially in light of recent events."

Go ahead and guess what the response was.
I'll wait.

Yeah, you're right. She did not take me seriously. It wasn't a surprise when she rudely shut me down once again.

I had an opportunity to discuss the issue with Flunky. Her response left my blood boiling. "Well, we figure kids are going to be exposed to all kinds of horrible influences and people. And we figure it may as well be us exposing them."

Yes. She really said that. Arrogant much?

All of us were talking among ourselves, all of us were worried.

I called the person one step higher on the food chain once again and expressed my concerns. I am not the only person who made a call. At least four of us called. I was listened to, but that person had zero experience with public transit and accepted Caustic and Flunky's reassurances that everything would be just fine and 'look at all the money we'll save!!'

We weren't allowed planning time for summer. We weren't allowed to create the usual summer environment. There is a reason our summer program is consistently full and parents keep coming back. We weren't allowed to be those people that year.During summer setup, I used a whole tank of gas hauling items from one school to another. She told me that since I had a big truck, that would be great and that she'd give me a gas card to pay for it. I never got that gas card, although I reminded her twice.

We worked very hard to get everything set up. There were three of us doing the work while the rest of the gang dropped by, tossed their bins of papers and computers into a big pile in the middle of the room and left. She didn't want to pay people to 'stand around doing nothing'. It was an eleven hour day without a break. Without lunch. She sure as hell never showed up to see how we were doing.

When I ended up with 48 minutes of overtime that week, she jumped all over me. She called me on the phone and said that the next time I went over hours, she would write me up. My comment that I didn't even know I had gone over was ignored. She hung up on me.
We had a parent with some serious physical disabilities. Our summer location had a choice of many stairs to the door or alllll the way around the building to an extremely steep ramp to the back door. We were concerned for the safety of that parent. We were asked by that parent if it was possible for us to bring the sign out book to the door. Flunky overheard our discussion about it and let Caustic know. Caustic pitched a fit.

She rolled her eyes and called the parent 'lazy' and said that s/he could "come to the damn door just like everyone else."

We ignored her orders and brought the book to the door every time that child was picked up. It was a courtesy, and of course if she'd been thinking, she would have realized that an accident of a parent falling down a flight of stairs or a ramp would have been a bad liability issue.

We got away with it, but I've often wondered what she would have done if she'd shown up while that child was being signed out. She was so controlling that I wouldn't put anything past her.

We weren't allowed to do many of the things we wanted with the kids that summer. Our summers have a rhythm. A routine. We have specific events that occur. Water play day. Bike/scooter day. Different projects we all bring. We all have a big strength project or two. Or three. Mine is tie dyeing with the kids. Lots of other small projects, too, but that's my big one.

It's a project that requires me to be out of ratio. An 'extra' staff person for the time I'm working with the kids. I'm not able to adequately supervise children and help other kids with the shirts. It's not safe. We all are aware of it, and we've always been able to work that way for tie dyeing.

Caustic said no. Actually what she said was, "That's stupid and if you can't do your job while you're tie dyeing then we're just not going to do it."

The kids were so disappointed. So was I. And Sunshine stayed as a volunteer so I could tie dye shirts with my kids. She worked for free so the kids wouldn't be disappointed.

We've all done that from time to time... a little extra to make sure the kids are happy and we're doing fun stuff.

We got in trouble for it. Not because it was against any rules, but "Because I said so!"

I could tell you 20 stories about the beginning of that summer. They'd all be the same... Caustic hands down orders through Flunky. We do whatever we're told to do. It's not good enough and we're going to come up short. No matter what we do. Frustration isn't a big enough word to cover it.

Morale was in the toilet and someone was about to flush.
I don't know everything. But it seems to me that a little appreciation for someone willing to do extra to make things awesome for the kids should be thanked rather than (figuratively) slapped in the side of the head.

I was at the point of wanting to (literally) slap her in the side of hers.

Then, the announcement came down that she was leaving.

In a matter of weeks, she was gone and Flunky was in charge.
Also not a good fit.
Not surprising.
But she wasn't even close to being as abrasive as Caustic had been.