Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category
As a working momma, I have to find good childcare for those hours when I am away from my little man. Everyday we leave him somewhere for about 10 hours so that we can go to work and earn money so that we can pay for daycare so that we can go to work so that we can earn money. Sorry, got a little carried away.
Anyways, he has been in daycare since he was 3 months old. The first daycare we used was Kids r Kids. It seemed pretty nice at first. He was there from 3 months to 2 years old. We took him out after we got one of the teachers there fired. I went to pick my little man up one day and saw the teacher hit one of the other kids with her flip-flop on the head. This happened at another parent’s house while the daycare was closed due to damage sustained by Hurricane Ike. The teachers from the school were watching 4 or 5 kids at a parent’s house during the day until the center could open back up. They fired her immediately and handled things very well but I just didn’t feel right about sending him back. Also, they took months to re-open after Ike and did not do a good job at keeping everyone informed as far as a timeline goes.
So, at 2 we moved him to Ivy Kids. Holy Shit! I don’t even know where to begin with this one. When he started there he excelled. He had wonderfully caring teachers. They made him feel welcome and loved every day. He looked forward to going to school. It was all he could talk about. They did a great job of potty training him and getting him ready to move up to the 3 year old room. When he moved into that room, it was more of the same. He excelled academically and was an all around good kid. He was very bright and perceptive. He learned so much thanks to his teachers. They never had any problems with him either except that he didn’t take a nap. But they were okay with that. Around Christmas of this past year, one of his teachers was fired. The school didn’t send a note home or talk to parents about it at all. One day she just wasn’t there anymore and there was one teacher for 17 3 year olds. It stayed that way until the beginning of January when the other teacher had to go out on medical leave due to a serious problem. The school didn’t send a note home or tell the parents, all they did was talk to the kids about it. one day she was there, the next she was gone. Then started the revolving door of teachers. Since January of this year, he had 4 or 5 different teachers. He started having more accidents at school and he started to cry and complain when it was time to go in in the morning. He really didn’t like school anymore. Things got even worse about 3 or 4 weeks ago with his latest set of teachers. Accidents every day, complaints from his teachers every day. They never had anything good to say about him. This went on for 2 weeks before HH and I had enough and went in to talk to them about all of this negativity. Instead, we were blindsided by the assistant director. According to her, Z was a behavior problem that was average academically and emotionally immature for his age. Yep, all of a sudden our above average child has regressed. Not only that, we were told that he had to be removed from his class on several occasions and put in the “Baby Room” because he was disrupting the entire class and influencing other children to act up. Yet we were never told about him being removed from his classroom. No phone calls or notes sent home. Nothing. We set up a conference that was supposed to be us, the director and his teachers for the following week. All that week he was suddenly good according to his teachers and there were no bad reports. There also wasn’t anything good said either. We went in for our conference that Thursday and it ended up just being with the director. According to her, everything that had been going on was attributed to two other “problem children” that were being removed from the center as well as the teacher changes. He wasn’t going to be moved back and they were going to call us if there when/if there were any other problems. We left the meeting hopeful that we were all on the same page. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The next week was a return to the old way of things. Complaints every day and incident reports to sign. HH had to sign an incident report because Z kicked his teacher accidentally when she was putting him down for his nap. Why was she close enough that he could kick her “accidentally”? He is 3 1/2 years old, you tell them to lay down and take a nap. It sounded to me like she was forcing him to lay down and take a nap. That is a violation of state licensing. Tuesday he came home wearing a pull-up saying that his teacher told him that he was a baby and he had to wear a baby diaper and that he was going to have to go in the baby room since he was a baby. The icing on the cake was this past Thursday. Z came home with an Illness Report stating that he repeatedly has accidents and his privates are swollen and red and smell badly. Hhmmm. That sounds oddly like diaper rash to me. But he doesn’t wear a diaper since he’s potty trained. Let’s see here, he went to school in underwear with his privates looking normal and he comes home with diaper rash. Sounds pretty messed up to me like they aren’t doing their job which is watching and taking care of the children. Needless to say, Thursday was his last day there. He didn’t go back there on Friday and today was his first day at his new school.
I just wish that these people were really in it for the children. Instead, it seems like all they care about is money. I am trusting you with the care of my child, why can’t you care for him as if he was your own? If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be in the childcare business.
Like I said before, I started my new job. One of the biggest differences between where I was and where I am now is that instead of having an office with a door and two windows, I have a cubicle with no doors and no windows. I think it is probably 8 ft. x 8 ft. My cubicle is on the second floor of the building in this fairly small room that used to be a lunch room or break room. There are 7 cubicles in here. There is only one way in or out and I have to go by everyone else to get to mine. I chose to have the one in the very back corner because it offers at least a small amount of privacy. People have to know where to look to find me otherwise I am just forgotten. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
It’s been 3 years since I have had to work in a cubicle and there is a lot about cube life that I have to get used to. The biggest thing is that everyone can here what you say or what you listen to. I had gotten spoiled being able to listen to music through my iPhone using speakers so I wouldn’t have to wear headphones. That’s not the case now. I can’t exactly rock out or anything because of the other people around me. I hate having to wear headphones because I don’t like being tethered to my desk. The other thing about people being able to hear what you say is the gossip and phone calls. Before, I could use the phone for a personal call without having to worry about someone overhearing what I was saying. Not the case now. And God forbid you say something about someone else that you work with. The walls definately have ears and they are always listening.
Cubes are just so boring and drab. Who wants gray walls and a gray desk and black filing cabinets? Who wants two tiny, little shelves to put things on? They are just so impersonal, small and boring. There is even some kind of rule about plants. I don’t get that. Why can’t you have a little ivy on your desk or something. Anything would help to liven the place up.
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to have a job. I just have to get used to living 10 hours of the day, Monday thru Thursday, in a little gray cube.
Since having a child, I have frequented many blogs. I have read about off-ramping and on-ramping. I have read about the glass ceiling. Yet none of it has prepared me for this scary time.
As most of you know already, I am losing my job. I have been looking for a replacement job for several months now but there just isn’t much out there in this geographic location for my experience level. Even if there was, would I want to do this again? Would things be any different? Would I be treated like part of the team? Would I be mentored? Would I be trained? Would I be treated like a human being? I have so many doubts about this that it isn’t funny. I am burned out when it comes to this. All of my enthusiasm for what I do seems to be slipping between my fingers. I love the work that I do but I can’t stand the majority of the people I work with and how they treat people. That is what has gotten me burned out, not the work, the politics and interpersonal portions of my job. I am tired of feeling like I am being set-up to fail from the beginning. Maybe there are some good places to work but those probably aren’t the ones that are hiring right now.