getting along at work~

My school asked me to create from scratch 60 lesson plans for the summer. They wanted 3 levels of lesson plans for 20 days each. Of course, I had to do this on my own time, on top of my full workload, and, without any additional pay. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about this.

But, I tried my best to produce something of value, in their timeframe. And, I did it. I went in on a Saturday, usually my day off, and worked on the project for 2 hours. I also worked on it for another at least 3 or more hours (because who's really counting anyways) and turned it in on time as they requested.They had 2 weeks to look at it before it was to go to print, and if they had wanted to make suggestions they could have done so in that time period. But no, they waited until the last moment, the day before it was due to print, at 9:30, my time off, as I was leaving, and the head teacher asked me if I could stay for a moment to go over it. Hmmm....I said no. They said please. I said no, I'm sorry. And, I left.

I was very very tired. And, I was off!! They wouldn't pay me for any "extra" work I do, so, why should I have stayed? They had 2 weeks to review and go over it with me, if it were that important. Well, the next day I find out they decided to print something else anyways, and now I am expected to teach from what they produced. What irony!

I think I was simply fed up with being worked to and beyond my limit. For a speech contest they even asked me to "help" the students with their speeches (providing pronunciation help). This of course, took time, and ate into my prep and break times. So, I was stewing about that and just exploded one day last week at my head teacher. She was trying to give me directions or say something to me. But, her English is so bad, and slow, that I couldn't follow her. So I plainly told her so. She told me my attitude stressed her out. Well, since then, they haven't asked me to do "more". Maybe standing up for myself wasn't such a bad thing after all.