Gentle reader, please forgive the morose nature of this most recent entry. I am rather depressed by the prospect with my employer. J- is causing problems again and it's making me more then miserable.
I did love my job at one point in time. I love watching children light up as they learn something new. I love seeing the pride in their faces as they master a new skill or accomplish something they didn't think they could do. It delights me when children are playing and having fun. I find a deep satisfaction in imparting what little wisdom I have gained during my time thus far upon this Earth to them. And, oddly enough, I get an equally deep sense of satisfaction in maintaining their well being. Even if it makes me want to beat my head against the wall at times.
Now, however, I have come to loathe going to work. I wake up in the morning with a stress headache and a back in knots. When I get to work, I've already found myself in a position where most days I've taken an antacid by 8:30 am. And I get up at 6:45! Why do I loathe this experience that gave me joy and a sense of purpose? Because of the environment created by one person and my being effectively forced to deal with it at the risk of greater aggrivation if I don't, if not the loss of my employment.
J-, personally, is a very sweet woman. I don't think she's intentionally mean-spirited, though I'm beginning to be convinced that it could be otherwise. At best, she is utterly thoughtless and self-centered. At worst, she is a manipulitive and vicious lout who feels that she's worth something when she is denigrating some one else. J- and I don't see eye to eye on much of anything. As the Lead Teacher in the room, she feels that she can dictate to me all elements of my role in the class room. Now under any other circumstances, I would be inclined to do so.
With how J- runs the room and treats me, it will be a cold day on the sunny side of Mercury when that happens. J- feels that allowing children to run wild and play with objects such as power cords is fine. She claims "I'm handling it." How can she be handling it when the kids are throwing objects at each other which can injure them and playing with things that are clearly not ment for children between the ages of 1 1/2 years and 3 years? She stands there, watching as children run past her and out into the hall, unsupervised to go hide from us, the adults responcible for their safety.
God help me, becuase I fear that some child will come to harm when this happens and I'll be sued for that enormous degree of negligence. This woman gleefully passes the blame for all the problems in the room onto my shoulders, along with the hard work of maintaining dicipline and order in it. I am certian that if I was not there the room would go to the wolves. It's bad enough when I'm told that I'm not doing my job right because I'm not trying to bribe a child to behave. When I'm getting told that I'm not cleaning things the right way because the method that sterilizes play equipment isn't her method... it's a bit difficult.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do. The old boss abdicated responcibility and said "You two talk it out. I'll mediate it. You can resolve it." The mediation was her joining the bandwagon of bad-mouthing me and not giving me a chance to get a word in edgewise. And her saying "well, it's not really a problem. After all, it's not like that right now." Sure, there isn't garbage and dangerous things all over the room at this second. I cleaned up the room. I made sure that things like the hot glue guns (which aren't even supposed to be there in the first place) are up and safely out of reach. I threw away the food that had been horded and growing some kind of mold all over it.
The new boss claims that she's monitoring the situation and observing how J- and I work together. I've seen precious little of that. Meanwhile things are getting worse. It was just a matter of J- being mildly irritating at first. As time progressed, J- became lazy about cleaning the room. Now, she has the nerve to tell me that I'm doing it wrong. Mind you that she doesn't feel the urge to do little things like sweep the floor before she mops it, which rarely happens anyway. I'm getting sick of this mess and I don't know what to do.
Kinda scared to look for a new job. What if J- gets wind and some how manages to con her way to the phone when some one calls to inquire about me in reference to an application? She seems to have the management and the boss wrapped pretty tightly around her finger.
I am starting to hate my job. That's not fair.
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