Change

I just took some medicine, and it was bitter.

I called my co-worker tonight after another stress-filled day in the staffroom. To be honest, I didn't start out as my usual ray-of-sunshine self. My brother called me about 20 minutes before I had to leave for work. While I love, love, love these rare and precious phone calls, they often serve only to remind me where I am, and, therefore, where I am not.

So when I got to work and Elizabeth pounced on me to correct her English and ask me a slew of questions about the textbooks, I think I was a little surly. Maybe not. I think sometimes my true feelings don't play out on my face, but to the empath, they're easy to read. Empaths, my co-workers, are not!

Anyhow, my mood improved quickly after my first couple classes mostly filled with cute cute little girls in cute cute pink outfits. I'm an absolute pushover for one named Shelly and another named Nelly.

Every time I entered the staffroom, though, I felt the tension and got a little tense. It reminded me how much I hate working in offices that lack cohesion or camaraderie. Even if you aren't having fun, fake it, goddammit.

So I called my co-worker tonight to ask her what was up and she told me what I already figured, she had the quarterly report blues. My school also does phone teaching, which is one of the only schools I know that does. I don't enjoy it at all. Once I come home from work I'd rather not call my students and endure the awkward silences, but whatever, I think it's actually good practice for the students and an opportunity for me to talk to them outside of class. For the rowdier ones, it's interesting to hear the difference in them, over the phone while their at home with mom and dad in earshot, compared to when they're clowning it up for their classmates.

I only call the upper level students, which amounts to about 30 calls a month. The Korean teachers have to call all their students 3 times a month. Let me do some head-math. For Elizabeth, that's 36 x 3, so that's 106 calls a month. UGH. On the other hand, she teaches less classes than me. When I'm teaching in her classroom, she is not. Today, for example, she taught only 2 and a half classes to my 6. And as for phone teaching, she has the advantage of being able to prompt the students in Korean.

I'm not trying to compare my workload and situation to hers. It's impossible to do. Apples. Oranges.

I asked her, having now been through 12 months of year end reports, 12 months of phone teaching, and 4 instances of quarterly reports, "Why now?" I wondered what had happened this time around to make her so bummed out?

She started to complain about the workload and the reports. "Yes, yes," I said, "I know about the responsibilities, but still, why now?" Her reasoning wasn't something she could articulate. Or maybe, she didn't know exactly why she was pissed off.

Recently one of my co-workers quit my school. She took a couple weeks off and then found a new job at another school where she doesn't have reports or phone teaching. She gets paid per class, and while Elizabeth doesn't know how many classes this former co-worker is teaching, she figures it's a better deal. I think Elizabeth's having some "grass is greener" kind of thinking going on. Fair enough. And I can certainly understand someone just getting plain 'ole sick and tired of the same old same old.

Thing is, it's all about choices, isn't it? I told Elizabeth I understood, but as I saw it she had three choices. Stay at our school and be unhappy, stay at our school and be happy, or go somewhere else and be happy. She pointed out she could also go somewhere else and be unhappy, but I said "Aw, don't do that! Why would you do that?"

She informed me that while she is so happy to be working with me, from now on her attitude at work will be different. She will be quiet and reserved. She will be unhappy. I asked "Why?" and she said because she has now realized that it is only work. It is not a coffee shop. I find it surprising that she only now realizes, after 3 years, that it's a job. I find it even more surprising to think that once she realized this, she decided it's best to be unhappy at said job. I think maybe she's pulling some passive agressive acting out in the hopes of getting fired and forcing her hand. Maybe. Maybe not.

I asked if she minded if I told her what I thought about the three choices I mentioned and she said "sure!" I told her staying and being unhappy was a drag, it was going to wear her out, and I hated seeing her like that. Most people spend a lot of time at work, and I think it's too much time to spend being unhappy - if you are unhappy. I told her that, while she doesn't have any confidence she can get another job at another school (she says she is too old and her English is too poor) I believe in her and have faith that she can find another job and be happy. I told her that while it's possible that circumstances could change at our school and phone-teaching and report-writing would disappear, I doubted very much that was going to happen.

I asked her, "Do you know what I do when I come across something that seems impossible to change and it pisses me off?"

I change my mind.

I flip the problem over and look at it from another angle, or another and another. And I change my mind. Everything and anything is possible, and sometimes the path of least resistance is right in your head.

You think?

Mosquito, or mosquitoes, have been biting my ankles while writing this. I shall now kill them.