Hm. Hm. What should I do?

Okay.
Please bear with me.  

I can't tell you how many times I've seen 'bare' with me and (you're welcome) that will definitely not be happening today.

Once again, starting with a digression. 
Not that that's a bad thing. Right?

I got a raise. It's even a decent raise. I appreciate it, although (shhh) I've mentioned before that I really love my work and would almost be willing to do it without getting paid. But of course we need the money and most people don't work for free. 

But.

My planning time hours, which were 12.5 hours a week since I started working for this company were just cut to 10 hours.

That really doesn't matter too much, I've always spent more time planning and cutting things out and procuring supplies than I was paid for anyway. This past week I spent about 11 hours off the clock stringing cardboard looms, for example. I don't care. I'm sitting in my space watching whatever on TV, I can keep my hands busy in whatever way I choose. 

I go to Goodwill/other thrift stores on my own time and shop for things for other programs, too. This week I found a bunch of dress up stuff for the dramatic play boxes. I drive around to people's houses and pick up items from the local Buy Nothing group, also for the company. I don't charge them for this time, it's a thing I do to contribute to elevate programming for the entire company. 

As I said in a comment on one of my recent posts, we are only as good as our weakest program, and I'd love to see all our programs be better. Mine included. 
The company wins. 
The people who work there win. 
Most of all, the kids win. 

I don't care about those hours spent off the clock.
I'm not the only person who does it. 
I'll do whatever I need to do to provide a thoughtful, effective program that at least most of my kids enjoy. 

Since I started the program at this school in the fall of 2023, I have been arriving at 1:30 most days. I start setting up as soon as I have stopped in the school office and spoken with our secretary, checked the kid sign out logs and said hello to any other school personnel who may be in there. 

Then it's time to move and unfold tables and start hauling things out of our storage room for setup.

My second person arrives at 1:45 to help me finish setting up and getting ready for the thundering herd of young humans who start arriving around 2:10.

Five cafeteria tables, rolled across the room one at a time and wrestled into place. Each table needs to be washed with table spray and wiped off.

Four large carpets. One for the dramatic play area, two for the construction zone, one for the reading area. A rolling book cart for that reading area. A set of folding panels that goes behind the reading area to separate it and make it look a little nicer in that corner. Until I had it, the backdrop in the reading area was just a bunch of tables folded up against the wall.

Three rolling shelf units. One for art, one for games and one for our construction zone. Two plastic tablecloths are unfolded and placed on the art table. 

I have furniture dolly carts with large rubbermaid totes stacked on them. 

One furniture dolly has laundry baskets stacked on it. The kids put all their stuff in laundry baskets against the far wall.

One is full of things to add to the construction zone. One is all the stuff for the dramatic play area except the kitchen, which comes out after that. I have a rolling set of wheels for the snacks as well. A small folding table for the parent/guardian zone. 

They scan a QR code at that table to sign their child(ren) out. On that table are a tablecloth, a large display board, our licensing-required documents all laminated and stuck together with a ring. Our pencil sharpener. 

Artemus the Skeleton stands on that table, too. Whatever seasonal stuff I have goes there. It needs to look nice.

Then the tablet has to be turned on for checking kids in/checking to see if any parents have marked their child absent in the app or need to be contacted for some reason, and the bracelets are in a nice neat stack and ready to put on, too. Our phone needs to be checked to make sure there are no messages.

We are usually just getting finished setting up when kids start arriving. We don't have time to goof around during set up. Barely have time to make sure we use the restroom and wash up.

It's a lot of stuff. I'm not as physically capable as I once was, and although I can do the job, I can't do it within my 'oh by the way we cut your afternoon hours' schedule that was sent to me Friday afternoon.

The new schedule says I can't start work until 1:45. 
And that whoever's helping me can't start until 2 although it's a "possibility" that my 2nd can start at 1:45 if we get permission.
I already know it's going to be too much for me physically. 

Seriously. Look at what needs to be done and be honest... could YOU do all that in 25 minutes?

I know this because last school year, I had that madly spinning revolving door at *my* school and often had no one to help me set up. On the days when they had to send someone from the office/management to help me, they never showed up until like five minutes before kids arrived. 

That's fine, it's my program, my problem. 

But I already know how long it takes me to set up alone, I did it quite often last year. 

I also know that by the end of the day I'm in a not-small amount of physical pain. 
It's usually difficult for me to walk to my car. 

And seriously. 
What was the point of a raise if my hours have been cut, let me do the math here... 
4 hours per week or approximately 16 hours a month? I already work off the clock at least that many hours, to be honest. 

That's not a small chunk of change.

I'm not angry about it, I understand that they didn't just give me a raise. Since Lyssa works there, I know she received one as well. I'm assuming, based on nothing concrete, that other people received raises.

I know they bought a bunch of new stuff for our programs. I know they're giving us more money monthly to stock our supplies and to add some good things to the program. I'm pleased about that, as I'm one of the people who has pointed out why it's a good idea to have some program standards and to add things for kids to do.

Beating the same drum... give them choices, lots of choices and GET OUT OF THEIR WAY and let them figure it out!

So all of those recent changes are good and very much appreciated.

I know there's only so much money to go around.

So what should I do?
Have them transfer some of my planning hours to program set up time so I'm not having so much physical difficulty every afternoon by trying to set up everything in too short a time?

Come in at 1:20 or so and work off the clock until 1:45 when I'm allowed to clock in? 
(Yes, I know that's not a good idea. Liability and work comp stuff come to mind.)

I don't want to pitch a fit. 
I really am not angry. I can't even say I have hurt feelings. I know they're working to take care of their staff financially, run decent programs and streamline operations. All of those are good business decisions.

But I also know I can't manage to do what's being asked of me in the amount of time allotted. 

I could also send this post to the company president or VP.
That would not be my first choice.

But I have to speak up, this is not sustainable for me.


So. What do you think?

 


 

NOW what do I do?

It's been awhile since I wrote about Liam.

He's still in our program.

His dad has expressed concern to staff members about Liam's choices of toys to play with, saying that he doesn't want his son to play with 'girl' toys.

All summer, when Dad came to pick him up, he expressed disapproval if Liam was playing with girls or girl toys. Dad's thinking is that if he's not playing with (appropriately colored) Legos or cars, he's not playing correctly.

We've always tried to just make sure things are cleaned up when Dad shows. We avoid friction that way. And of course that way Liam can do what he wants to do while he's with us.

On Friday afternoon, Liam wandered aimlessly around the playground, kicking a chunk of bark and looking lonely.

Rachelle* pointed it out to me and said, "Do you know why Liam is sad?"

When I said I did not, she said, "He's not allowed to play with girls anymore."

So I went and sat next to Liam. By that time, he had parked himself on the playground bench, all alone. He was watching the bigger boys playing football and watching the rest of the group, mostly girls and two little boys, playing a version of follow the leader.

I asked him, "Don't you feel like playing?"

"I can't." he answered. "Loren and Joe* aren't here today."

"Well, you could play with someone else," I suggested.

And Liam said, "No. I can't. My dad said I am never allowed to play with girls anymore forever."

::gulp::

"Why did he say that?" I wondered aloud.

"Because he thinks I am going to turn into a girl," he answered.

"Oh goodness!" I said.

"So I can't play with girls. Not even Brooke*."

Brooke had been his best friend until this week. They'd had play dates at each other's houses and hung out during program, doing little art projects and reading knock knock jokes to each other.

"Can't play with girls, huh?" I asked. "How does that make you feel?"

"Sad." he answered without hesitation. "I can't hang around with my friends anymore at all."

I was speechless.

Despite my feelings about it, his father is his father. I am just the babysitter. I can't tell him, for example, "Hey. Did you know your dad is full of shit?"

Or, "Well, why don't you go ahead and play with whoever you want to and I won't say anything?"

So Liam sat on the bench the rest of the time we were outside and watched everyone else play.

Now the thing is, Liam may very well be the most effeminate little boy I've ever met. I don't know if that means he will grow up to be gay or not. Frankly, I don't give a shit. But if I had to point to a child I thought was going to grow up gay, it would be him.

All Liam wants is to please his father.
All his father wants is for his son to be a he-man.

So I can't do a whole lot.
I did call Sunshine and chat with her a bit. I wanted to know if she had any ideas. Obviously I can't undermine a parent in any way. She was stumped and told me to give Georgia* a call. Georgia is our area manager, and Sunshine thought perhaps there was something we could do.

And Georgia is going to give Dad a call on Monday and talk with him a bit. She is going to point out that Liam is spending an awful lot of time alone while at our program, and that it's not really healthy for him.

And seriously... I mean really think about this... if you're afraid your kid is going to be a gay boy, wouldn't you want to expose him to more girls rather than putting him with other boys?

So I can continue to treat Liam with respect. I can laugh with him, try to come up with group activities that he can participate in, and do what I can to make sure he doesn't look like he's doing anything 'gay' when his father shows up to pick him up.

I know I have a lot of smart people who read here. What would you do?

Bear in mind that I cannot undermine a parent, and cannot go against their wishes in a matter like this unless it's a safety issue.

If Dad doesn't want him to play with any girls, I can't encourage him to do so.

I can look the other way if he talks to girls or plays with them, but that's about the extent of my subversive activities.

This makes me so sad.

So what do you all think? Help me out here if you can. Please.

I'm on the horns of a dilemma...

Either that, or it's a Yak attack...

Eric took Lyssa to Kohl's before their trip to Louisiana, and they found a bunch of things on sale. It ended up being comparably priced to Goodwill, if you can believe it.

So he told me I had to get over there and check it out. He asked me again this week if I'd gone in.
No.
So he said, "Go."

I went in on Thursday afternoon and found several shirts that I really liked. I picked out five of them and scrounged up a gift card from my wallet that still had 14 bucks and change on it to deduct from my total.

$43.18. For five shirts that fit, were in colors I love and will be great for work this fall. Deduct the $14.00 from that and it was a great deal. I left happy.

Well, I was sitting here a few minutes ago looking at the receipt.

I was only charged for four shirts.
The one that didn't show up on my receipt was $5.60. Not a terribly expensive shirt.

Now I'd have no trouble going in, showing them the receipt and saying, "Hey, I was accidentally not charged for this shirt, and I'd like to pay for it."

But I wonder about the little girl clerk person who rang up my items. Would she get in trouble? Possibly lose her job over a five dollar mistake? Would it go into her personnel file?

Had I noticed while I was there, it would have been easy to just point it out and pay for it, but now I've been home for hours, cut off all the tags, washed and dried all the shirts and hung them up.

I am still not sure what I'm going to do.
I don't want to get anyone in trouble.
But I don't steal, either.

It's really, really important to me to be honest.

About six years ago, I was in Sprawlmart, and picked up an eyeglass repair kit. (39 cents).

We paid for all our stuff, about 200 bucks worth, and left the store. When I got out to the car, I found the eyeglass repair kit still in my cart. I had not put it on the counter and I had not paid for it.

I took it back into the store and paid for it. The clerk at the customer service counter looked at me like I was crazy, but I didn't care. My kids were with me. It's important to me to raise honest children, and the best way to do that, of course, is showing them by example.

There was no way I could drive away knowing I'd stolen the eyeglass kit... even though no one else would have ever known.

So. No one would have known about the shirt, either.

Except I told a few friends.. and now it's on my blog so a few more know about it. But even if I told no one, I'd still know.

I saw the receipt and I can't just let it go. It's wrong.

What would you do? Go back to the store and talk to the manager? Do nothing? I am still pondering.

Right now I'm leaning toward calling the store, asking to speak to the manager and tell him or her what happened and go from there.

Am I just a doofus? I've actually been accused of overthinking stuff before if you can believe that...

Edited to add:

Called and talked to the manager.
After surprise and thanks for calling, I was told to 'enjoy my free shirt and thanks for shopping at Kohl's'.

But I can sleep tonight knowing I did the honest thing.

Just whining...

Evidently being a little tense affects the way my shoulder feels.

Visited Shawn today (Thursday) and he was a bit surprised at both the increase in my pain level and decrease in comfortable range of motion.

After we talked about my week, we decided that maybe I'm a little tense. And that hopefully next week (I see him again on Monday) will be better.

I sure hope so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the risk of sounding even more whiny, my knee hurts.
In the general scheme of things, a little knee or shoulder pain isn't that big a deal. I know that.

And I sympathize with everyone who has it worse. I know there are a lot of them.

But my knee has been hurting off and on (mostly on) for almost a year now. If it worked better, I could kick myself in the ass for letting my warranty expire. :)

The knee pain isn't huge, really. But it's enough to wake me up several times in a night. That has its good side, though, if you think about it. It means that my shoulder pain has become small enough now that I'm once again aware that I have a knee.

My knee is waking me up at night. And it hurts when I get out of bed in the morning. And it hurts all day long. And it freezes up and then POPS at random. I never know when it's going to happen. It's not stable, either. I barely kept from crashing into a wall this morning at the school. There are two inclines leading down into the cafeteria. Since I know the knee isn't reliable, I am careful going down the slopes. I slow way down and hover my hand next to the wall just in case.

In this case, it was good to take that precaution.

Except it was my right hand and I ended up hitting the wall with my right shoulder.


::Sigh:::

Because it's been bothering me so much and I'm so very tired of all of it, I've been pondering about the best time to have the surgery done on the knee.

Our entire staff is put on seasonal leave at the beginning of the summer, meaning we have to pay our share of our benefits out of itty bitty paychecks... but then I get to KEEP my health benefits over the summer.

But I'll be collecting disability payments while I'm unable to work.
I'd rather have those payments based on the amount of time I average during a regular work week than based on the very few summer hours I'm likely to get.

But that would mean having the surgery done before school gets out in June. Or waiting until school starts in the fall and trying for November again.

Which sort of worked, except everything at my site went to hell.

If I had surgery over the summer and ended up on leave, I might lose benefits again due to how long I have worked/not worked full time. I don't know how many hours I have put in, but my guess is... not enough.

And I will not go without the benefits again, so I may have to postpone the surgery based on what's best for my family and have the surgery during the 2010-11 school year

Head spinning.

Any advice?
Anyone know how to navigate Oregon Worker's Comp law?
I don't know what to do.

I'm leaning toward just working all summer on a sore knee to give my shoulder all the time it needs to finish healing so I can be on friggin' crutches for six weeks. But of course that means me leaving my site again during the school year for surgery.

And that sucks, too.

::sigh::

Come back tomorrow, I will try to post something that isn't whiny.

Leave good advice in the comments... I don't know what to do.

help?

There was once a man who decided to raise show horses. He had a decided talent for it, and won several awards with his beautiful animals.

About a week before a show, he went out to the barn to visit with his favorite stallion. As the horse came toward him, he noticed a bird had constructed a nest in the horse's mane. He easily pulled the nest off, but it left a sore on the animal's neck. When he went out to see the animal again the next morning, the sore had cleared up, but the same bird had evidently built another nest in the mane. He again removed it, and again it left a blemish on the otherwise perfect neck.

He consulted his veterinarian, and expressed his concern that the horse would have a sore on the day of the big show.

The vet suggested he spread yeast on the horse's neck to solve the problem.
"Yeast!?" he asked.
"Yes," the vet replied. "Don't you know yeast is yeast and nest is nest and never the mane shall tweet?"

I posted that old joke because it's much more fun than trying to explain my yeast-type infection. It's not in the usual location, for which I am profoundly grateful, but I am having some major problems with yeast overgrowth just the same.

My feet.. only on the bottoms. And no, it's not athlete's foot. I've had that before and I know exactly what it is. It's also under my bra band. (Yeah, I know...TMI. But you're the one reading my blog.)

I have a topical medication that seems to be effective, and this is a good thing. But what wacked out thing is causing the yeast overgrowth? Any ideas? I'd really like to treat the system, not just the flare-ups on the outside of me.