On the edge here....

Okay, so long story.

For the first month of school, I have been in the worst pain in my entire life. Yep, worse than the rotator cuff surgery, the ACL repair... bad bad.

My legs were horrendously painful. I wracked my brain trying to figure out why they hurt so much. Walking was awful. Lifting either foot more than an inch or so was impossible. My knees, inside toward the back, where those big tendons are, were hot to the touch and did I mention it hurt? Like REALLY hurt? As the days wore on, the pain was also in the upper inner thigh tendons.

So the act of sitting down caused me a huge amount of pain until I was planted in the seat.

It wasn't helpful that I spent the previous 18 months sitting here at home, doing a lot of nothing, either. At first, when I was just a little sore, that's what I thought was going on.

But it got worse and worse and worse until every step was agony. I can't even describe it. 

Moving freight into my site, going through the garbage that was there and tossing things out, moving furniture, assembling furniture for crap's sake, vacuuming the carpet, sweeping floors, going back and forth from our room to the hallway to make sure my smallest people make it into the bathroom (and get out again, that door is heavy) and the million other things I have to do was killing me.

I came home after my morning shift, fell into bed as soon as I could and slept like a brick for the next three hours most days.
A little recovery time that helped.
Sort of.

The anti inflammatory medication I was taking because of the pain wasn't helping my stomach much. Churned out a lot of acid. Which caused me to take an extra Pepcid here and there.

Finally, Tuesday of last week, I figured out what was going on.
The 'innocuous' Pepcid I was taking (over the counter!!) was causing my tendons to be inflamed. And of course I was taking extra because of the ibuprofen stomach acid thing.

Inflamed isn't a good description, really.
It was more like in flames.
A goddamn conflagration.

I have a feeling that if I hadn't figured it out, sometime this week those tendons would have ruptured.

Like I said.
Agony.
Do not recommend.

I stopped taking it. The next day things were still sore, but there was a definite improvement. Each day it's been better. I feel almost normal now, which means I only have the regular constant knee pain I've had for 10 years now. A whole 'nother story.
 

But while the pain was so bad, I considered just quitting my job. Walking up stairs is very difficult for me on my regular days, and the school where I work is not ADA compliant. Ordinarily the school where I work has a large-ish program, needing two or three adults on site. But because of the pandemic rules, my program size is currently limited to 15 kids, which is the maximum amount of children I'm allowed by law to be alone with/responsible for. 

If you think that sounds like a lot for one person to cope with, you're  right.
It's not made easier by the loss of so many of my program supplies, either. It's been a difficult month for me. Not a lot for the kids to do that I didn't bring in myself, and of course there is very little space, so I am cleaning things out to make room but a great deal of my regular stuff is gone thanks to the haphazard way things were handled.

I have to go up a flight of stairs to take my young charges to meet their teachers each morning, back down those stairs afterward. Up them again in the afternoon when we go to the playground for our snacks and playtime. Down them again. Etc.

By the time I'm off work in the evening, I can barely walk. Getting into my car is difficult. Getting back out of the car when I get home isn't any easier.

I really don't know how I've slogged through this month.
All I had was my determination to do so.

I spent a lot of time considering finding a different job or just quitting and then looking for a job.

My general job satisfaction has not been helped by the complete lack of support from my formerly mostly supportive employer.

Remember that 'promotion' I didn't take?

It was actually a way to keep us away from people who work at the office.  Another layer.

Kind of like when you call your doctor and you have to get through two or three people who don't give a shit about you whose main function is to make sure you don't BOTHER the doctor.

And because the company is finding it difficult to get employees, some of our sites have not been able to open. So the lofty 'you will be an out-of-ratio adult, running a few programs and doing a lot of things in the office' has turned into people who are still doing the same job as I am, only making a lot more money at it.

Still glad I said no, though.

Louise, the person who is in charge of my site (nope, *I* am not in charge of my own site... although I'm the one doing all the daily work) has been pretty nice, but she has no authority to help me with anything.

Instead, if I have questions or need help or whatever, I am supposed to talk to her, then she will talk to the next person up the line.

Which is why it reminds me of calling your doctor's office and being ignored.
Their job is to tell you to fuck off without actually saying, "Fuck off."

But there are people out there (I'm one of them) who actually know when they're being told to fuck off. And instead of fucking off, I get fucking pissed.

I'm now officially pissed.

There has been some restructuring, some due to the pandemic, some because a different person is the CEO.

They haven't filled the position recently vacated by Jim, who left on the 17th. They're shuffling some people around at the top and ignoring those of us at the bottom.

Despite the almost daily fuck off vibe I get from the office, I hereby reiterate how happy I am that I turned down the 'promotion' they offered me.

Yesterday, October 8th, was a statewide inservice day. So our schools were closed and so were the in-school programs offered by my employer.

While I slept in, went grocery shopping with my husband and painted a picture of some frogs doing yoga, the promoted ones spent a day at the office doing paperwork in the morning and sitting through a training session in the afternoon.

Now there is the whole hey they got paid for the day and I didn't but you know what? I needed the day off and I am grateful I was able to have it.

Monday of last week, the principal of the school stopped by my program in the afternoon and informed me that the music class is going to start soon. She requested that my employer get some cabinets and that I make sure my program is put away each morning. In addition, she wanted the open shelving unit to be cleared for musical instruments. I assured her that I was already on it, that I had an appointment to meet at the storage facility on Thursday and that I'd be getting some rolling shelves and some cabinets. I promised to follow up as soon as I knew when we'd be bringing the cabinets in.

I immediately let my manager person know.

You know, the person who's been there the same amount of time that I have except that SHE accepted that promotion. Louise.

Louise then sent an email to the only two people at the office who would be able to help and included me in the recipients.

I have visited our closed child care facility in Back of Yonder a couple times. I recalled there were several storage cabinets with doors that matched and would work for my purpose.

So on Thursday I met up with a different manager person out there and put a label with the name of my school on the things I needed, three cabinets and two rolling shelving units. I texted Louise to tell her what I'd done (she knew I had been planning the storage visit) and asked that as soon as she had a timetable for delivery that she let me know so I could pass that information on to the principal.

It wasn't more than three minutes before my phone rang. It was Louise. She had talked to Rowan, her manager. And Rowan was questioning my need for the cabinets. Even though she'd been copied on the email and knew what was going on, she didn't think I needed those cabinets.

"Can't we just pile our stuff against one wall and throw a drape over it?"

Swear to gawd... that was her solution. She also wanted to 'make sure the things I asked for would fit in the space'. Because I guess I'm too stupid to use a fucking tape measure?

I texted Louise back, 'I brought a tape measure. For goodness sake.'

Coincidentally, Rowan was the person ahead of me on the food chain when I started working for this company. A school district guy who came to my site to repair something told me that a large, free-standing cabinet that was being used to store games was too tall and not supposed to be in an area accessible to children.

I called Rowan and told her. She told me to, "Take all the games and put them in the back room and move the cart out."

So take away the games and make it so the kids had to ask for them rather than just choose.
Yep, helpful solution.
Quite professional.

Here's the thing. I haven't seen all the programs run by this organization, but I have seen several. All of them are madhouse programs, staffed by people who are babysitting for the most part. Instead of being able to have a calm environment where the adults are there to facilitate the experiences offered, they run around putting out fires. Usually only figuratively, although I understand a couple years ago some boys lit the paper towel dispenser on fire during program at one of our sites.

The kids in other programs aren't offered a lot of choices. It's usually a rudimentary craft, a trip to the gym or outside, a few games to choose from. There are books at most programs, although they're mostly crap. LEGO is usually on the menu, but  it's not usually very much. A little shoebox for a full program is usually all they offer.

The games are quickly destroyed, game boards torn in half, pieces lost. Kids chase each other around, most of them are bored and hate being there.

Back when we were still welcome at our office and able to come in for supplies, there were always piles of new games to choose from and almost every time I was there, someone was taking a few out.

Not now. We have no supply room. We aren't welcome at the office. If we need something, we can certainly ASK for it, but considering the difference between what I asked for to run my program and what I actually received, there's someone sitting there with a red pen saying, "Nope, you don't need this or this or that," and crossing them off the list.

Which explains why I am ordering things with my own damn money from Amazon so I can run a decent program.

Nothing extravagant, either. But I asked for some beads, some black card stock, some acrylic paint, a couple rugs to replace the ones I had taken from me.

When  my supply order was delivered last week, I didn't get several things I'd asked for. And although I'd specified amounts of what I needed, quite a few of those were cut in half.

It frustrates me because I almost never ask for a damn thing. I just go procure what I need. But I'd been doing that for a few years and had everything well stocked, running smoothly and the kids were happy.

Had I been allowed back into my school with my supplies intact, I would not have needed anything to start the school year. Not one damn thing.

Why is this? I think it's mostly because people don't do things the way I do them.

My method, in case you don't know me, is to offer the kids a LOT of choices.
All of them good.

A ton of toys/LEGO/games, all in good condition. They are in good condition at my site because I expect the kids to take care of stuff. I have games in my shed that have been with me for 15 years. The pieces are all still in them, they're still in great shape.

Craft supplies out where they are accessible.

Specialty items like drawing books and pattern blocks and a dollhouse with furniture and pets and little cars.

I had so many wonderful books, too. A bunch from my good friend Tami, both ones she's written and some her kids had outgrown and she'd passed on to me. There were books about almost every topic, both fiction and non fiction. Gone.

I even had a small book rack on the homework table with a thesaurus, a dictionary, some fraction circles, a multiplication chart.. stuff for homework help, which is something we say we're offering but mostly we don't because kids who are chasing each other around and breaking toys and destroying games don't have time to do their homework  while they're at day care. And those who might can't find a quiet corner to work anyway.

AND I offer a sort of guided project or craft every day, too.

So I am trying to run a good program in a new school with almost zero support. The place was a pit, bins of dirty and broken toys, scraps of tissue paper and fun foam and broken crayons and some sort of scary goop in the bottom of most bins (my guess is slime?) and I'm working damn hard at getting it in order.

I've brought in the vast majority of the supplies we're using along with some shelving units that I built on site and installed in the cabinet. I've come up with all our projects and activities without any assistance or supplies offered.

The supplies I asked for were sort of purchased except where someone who doesn't know how I run things because NO ONE HAS EVER OBSERVED MY PROGRAM IN OPERATION and I've been working for them since 2016 has decided I don't NEED what I asked for.

The cabinets the principal asked for may or may not show up this week.

I told Louise that *I* will rent a goddamn Uhaul, I will get my husband and my son in law to go get the cabinets and bring them to me.

She said it would happen this week, that she thinks she can put things in her truck, but we'll see.

This is actually a test.

Either they get me the things I practically had to beg for and get them to my site, or I will go find another job.

I have never quit a job without notice because I am just not that kind of person, but I'm done.

Tired of the fuck off vibe and the total lack of support.
Tired of spending my own money to run a decent program that does nothing but make them look good.
Tired.