Short Handed

My guts have been twisted in knots sort of since I got stood up for my work's Christmas/End of Year lunch. I worried about how it was going to be once I saw my manager Jane again. Would she apologize? (Probably not.) Would we just carry on with some icy silence enveloping us? (More likely.) Would work become some beast that I hated to visit because it left me feeling tense and uncared for? (?) Anyhow, so far all the worrying has been for naught. Jane hasn't been to work since Christmas Eve. I anticipated seeing her on the 26th, then the 3rd, and most recently yesterday - the 7th, and she hasn't come in. Apparently she had to have some surgery on something female which meant she'd be out the week after Christmas. The following week was shortened by a 3-day holiday, and I heard she could have come in, but decided to rest up and be all recovered to start fresh yesterday. Still, though, no Jane. From what I've been told, she's going to be gone for the whole month!

So I hope she's alright, even though she's a witch for screwing me over at Christmas. Part of me wonders if we'll ever see her again. It's not the first time I've wondered this and I was right about the last co-worker to go AWOL permanently. Have you even gotten away from your life - or what was your life - either by your own choice or circumstance, and then realized you just can't (WON'T) go back. I've had jobs where I realized, in the midst of some time off, that I'd rather jam a chopstick up into my brain than go back. Sometimes you don't even realize how stressed and depressed you actually are until you're far enough away for some fresh perspective. I'm not saying this is how Jane's feeling, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that's the case. I imagine once I move on from my life here I'm going to feel a sense of relief.

Anyways, in a very ballsy move, my other co-worker (and co-Christmas-screwer-overer) Sunny called in sick today! She's very not Korean, as most Korean employees will drag themselves into work even if they're at death's door. The 1st K-teacher I worked with at my school hadn't missed a day of work in over three years. (Until she didn't show up one day because she'd lay overdosed on sleeping pills. Whoops!) Still, Sunny's been working at our school for about eight months and she's had more sick days than I've had in the three and a half years I've been there. Not too long ago she took a whole week off to have a mole removed from her boob. I heard she headed up to Seoul to visit with friends just after her "surgery," so you know she wasn't totally broke down.

I'm no super-hero, but I've been to work with numerous nasty colds and flus, after a sleepless night in hospital with food poisoning, a few minutes after armpit surgery, after a car wreck, and even looking like I'd gone ten rounds in a prizefight. I made a deal with myself that unless I couldn't - I mean unless I was physically unable to go to work, I'd be there. It's not as if there's a room full of substitute teachers to cover for me if I'm out sick.

But Sunny calls in sick with "a fever and body hurts." When we're already short staffed!
When Karen told me that I said, "Tell her to take a pill and get her ass in here!" That's mean, I know. I'd like to think that when I call in sick no one's questioning whether I'm really ill, but I think I've proven that I'm a trooper and if I'm saying I'm not able to come in, then I'm not playing around. Maybe Sunny is very gravely appayo, but I doubt it. She was fine at the end of Monday. Anyhoo.

So there were only TWO of us today, and we taught 14 classes over 5 periods.
Insane.

Sunny's lucky I'm not her boss, because I would have just told her to get the hell in to work, or to not bother coming in ever again. I'm sure I could find some other "English teacher" who doesn't speak English to come in and be useless. Even with the sniffles.