Back from Vacation

I never like the day back at work after vacation, but today was particularly horrible. My husband and I had been planning a two week tour of the north pretty much since we moved to Florida in November. We figured it would give us time to say hi to everyone we hadn't seen since Christmas. Since we both work at a school, we figured that we could spare two weeks in the summer, no problem. And then I was told that my position as registrar was a 12 month position, unlike my husbands teaching position which was only 10 months. Yay. So I took two weeks vacation. Everyone was notified a head of time. I spent almost all of June training two people to take my place (who did marvelously well!) and even made sure that the school had my cell phone number, just in case.

WELL. It seems that I did forget to do something. I forgot to enter the summer school grades last Friday. A thing I didn't know I was supposed to do until AFTER I received 500 voice messages about how I had to enter that information by 3 pm THE DAY THEY WERE CALLING. I got the messages at 9 pm. And no one told me who got what grade. So even if I had received the messages, it would have been pointless.

ANYWAY. I went to work today, not really ready to go back but at least ready to work hard. UNTIL I walked through the door. Not only was I chewed out, by another school's principal, not mine (who thinks I do a wonderful job) BUT I found out that while I was gone, another registrar was sent over to make sure that my school was OK. She spent the day going "oh no! She hasn't done that yet!" Yeah. DUH! I'M ON VACATION. As it was, I spent four hours on vacation working. Did I mention that this was DURING MY VACATION? So excuse me for wanting to spend time with a family I don't see any more.

AND (yes, there's more) while I was gone, it seems that someone has decided that we need/can hold 200 more students (no people, that number is not an exaggeration, unlike the majority of numbers I throw out) than we currently have enrolled, which means more teachers. The problem is we are a school in FLORIDA. There are no teachers in FLORIDA. WHERE ARE WE GOING TO FIND THE TEACHERS FOR 200 MORE KIDS?!?!?! OFF THE STREET?!? WHERE?!!!!! I am sorry, but I have an ethical problem with claiming to parents that we have smaller class sizes then other public schools when we don't have the teachers to teach the kids we already have. So either we're going to have classes that are double the normal size, or we're going to have to call a lot of parents and say "oh, so sorry. thought we could accommodate you, but guess not. better luck next time."

To be honest, the situation sucked when I left for vacation, and I was hoping that two weeks away would help me not hate my job so much. I kept telling myself that a break would be good. And then, today, amidst the chewing out for being on vacation when I was supposed to be working (so sorry, my bad. I forgot I'm not supposed to have a life outside of work) I was told that my job should make me stressed. While I didn't say anything, what I really wanted to do was say "I'm sorry, 'honey' but you don't pay me enough to be stressed." And then walk away and never come back. Honestly. This is not what I want to be doing for the rest of my life, even less so if the pay is crappy and the job is stressful. Screw this! The only reason I'm going back to work tomorrow is because of four people: the two girls who helped me out on vacation, the new principal and the old principal. I'm walking back into work tomorrow to do my job the best I can because that is all I can do. But it is so hard when every day has been a day like today. I wish I was still on vacation...