She's makin' a list...

Remember the commentary on Daylight Saving time about cutting an inch off the top of a blanket and sewing it on to the bottom and then saying, "Hey look! The blanket is longer!!"

Yeah.
This is like that.

My program was limited to 15 kids last year and I was full time, running a solo site.
I only had two kids in the mornings, and they told me that didn't bring in enough money to justify holding morning program this year.

I wasn't unhappy about it, last year was the most difficult work year I've ever had.

So this year, they increased my afternoon program by three kids, got me an assistant, and suddenly the program 'isn't bringing in enough revenue' to consider me full time.

The latest emailed response from a manager person, (after telling me that 'it wasn't her idea' to take away the only small perks I get and that the poor schmuck who took the "promotion" and was therefore placed over me 'is just doing her job') generously told me there's way to keep my full time hours!!

Yes, magnanimously, she has offered me morning hours at a different school!
You know, just like last year!

I have never been so exhausted in my life as I was last year.

My new regular program was a bunch of crap instead of program supplies.
It was dusty and neglected. Broken shelves, a fucking tote full of Mr. Potato Head parts, FOUR gigantic tubs of blocks, something like 8 thousand pencils and boxes of crayons crammed into little spaces where they didn't belong. So I worked like hell on fixing it between the beginning of September and the end of December, when I was informed I'd be working at two different schools!  School #2 was a mess, compounded by a profoundly disturbed kid who should not have been placed in a regular program.

It wasn't good for me in any way. UGHHHHH.

I slept in increments... get up at 5, shower and dress and drive a half hour, work two hours, drive another half hour, sleep, get up and get ready and go to a DIFFERENT school (funny, another half hour drive) work a few hours then drive another half hour to 40 minutes and get home about 7. Sleep at 8, up three times at least to pee/obsess/pee then up again at 5. Squeeze in a couple meals every day and that was my whole life.

The second 'new' afternoon program I was stuck in was abysmally run before I got there.
Axel, of course.

Their choices of daily activities were coloring sheets, those damn rainbow loom rubber bands (no loom and if you're guessing that mostly what they did was shoot rubber bands at each other you're right) and a little box of fuse beads. There were some toys, not many. Nothing much in the way of art supplies or things for creative or dramatic play. The games were broken, missing pieces and were in smashed boxes. The toys they did have were cracked, broken, boring.

Axel didn't have the cafeteria divided into programming areas, either. The kids had the whole huge room. They ran.  Some of the boys tossed a football and ran after it. Once.  And when I put a stop to that, they were quite pissy, "Well AXEL lets us do it!"

(All together now... 'Do I look like Axel?')

I moved the tables closer to our end of the room, made the back four rows off limits, and brought in art supplies and a dollhouse  and a bunch of toys. More LEGO, because one little shoebox container for 25 kids isn't enough. I got art supplies for them. Stencils and paper and markers. Scrounged up bins and rolling storage. Organized the program, delineated program areas with signs and rugs. Found a foosball table on Amazon and got the company to order it. Tossed the scores of duplicate stupid 'learn to read' books that were donated by various teachers and replaced them with things the kids were interested in. As always, I donated my own stuff, too. I want to leave every program better than it was when I found it.

In short, I fixed not one but two damn programs last year, just like I've moved and fixed and moved and fixed every program they have dumped me into since 2016.

I was exhausted, in constant pain from assorted things, playing catch up all the time and couldn't even catch up a little at night because the stress kept waking me up.

And my reward for fixing their programs is to have my morning program cut and be told I no longer qualify for vacation time, holiday pay or any kind of 'extra'.

So I'm making a list of things I want to take with me when I leave.
Most of what I brought to my program will remain there. It's not fair to the kids to take the things they look forward to doing/playing with when I leave, and I'm not going to do it. It doesn't matter that I paid for those things, they're no longer mine.

My employer can buy their own damn LEGO, though, as they are expensive to replace and the ones on site all belong to me. I'm bringing them home.

Although I easily could, I refuse to take anything that isn't mine. If I didn't pay for it 100%, it's staying behind.

Tomorrow I have to take my car in for the repairs from the accident that happened in September and make a phone call to a potential employer.

I won't be available to any new employer until after January 1st, I have promised my kids a project a day during the month of December, a promise I intend to keep.

I'm fortunate, I don't have to have another job lined up before I quit, either. I could just stay home indefinitely, although that's not what I want to do. I enjoy my work a great deal.

I won't be turning in my notice until after I've had a chance to take my list and a few boxes and get my stuff out.

I'll write a letter to my employer (maybe I should just copy and paste this?) and a letter for my families. I'll probably draw heavily on the one I wrote to the families when I quit my other job in 2016. It was pretty good. If you ask me. Which you didn't.

It was not my first choice to leave.

But here we go.