Those of you who have spent any time with me in the past forever will be aware of the fact that I teach swimming and waterpolo at the Unigym, once managed by UNSW and now managed by a certain acronym made famous by The Village People which I will not be explicitly mentioning for legal reasons. The Unigym used to be a marvellously run place, where rosters were given out weeks in advance and said rosters were valid for the length of the term, thus allowing you to actually plan ahead; a place where saying 'I have class, I can't do that shift' meant that they wouldn't ask you to take that shift every week, or indeed ever again, but never mind - I'll speak more on that in some later post.
The reason I write today is because I may have just had the most insulting meeting of my life. I say 'may' because I can't really compare it with the only other meeting which comes close, Adela vs. The Establishment Vol. I: St George Edition.
So last Friday I received a very vague text message asking if I could come in for a meeting. No mention of what the meeting was about, but considering the level of organisation I'd come to expect from those people, I cannot say that I am surprised. We tentatively agreed to meet on Monday.
Then on Saturday, I recieved an equally vague call telling me that Monday wouldn't work for them, and could I do midday Wednesday. The call also told me that they were taking away my Tuesday morning shift, but were giving me a new Monday shift. So I was reasonably sure they wouldn't fire me. Anyway, I said that I would have to check my diary to see if I was available and that I would get back to them; because I had spent the entire day teaching swimming for their institution and as a result, didn't have my diary on me at the time. So I got home, checked my diary, and saw that no, I could not do midday Wednesday. Because I had this weird thing called studying. So I sent an email outlining that fact.
Hi [Name witheld for legal reasons]
I can meet on Wednesday, although given that my aim is to spend the day studying, might I be able to meet with you in the morning or afternoon? Midday isn't the most convenient time for me.
Sorry
Adela
I recieved the following reply:
Hi Adela,
I
understand the time you have set aside for study. Unfortunately,
midday (rather my schedule of availability in-between school groups and
swimschool) is the most suitable.
Please confirm you are available to meet on Wednesday 06/11 @1230pm.
Neither font nor colour has been changed. Anyway, this was again quite a typical response from management (see my earlier rant re: 'I have class'), and so I replied accordingly:
Hi [Name still witheld]
I apologise for the fact that that is
the most suitable time for you, but there are a limited number of
computers with the software I require for assignments, and if I do not
secure one in the morning and then never leave it, I will not be able to
return to a computer after our meeting.Adela
Perhaps it devolved ever so slightly into a dick-waving contest, but considering I won it (we met on Tuesday), I don't really care.
So I arrived this morning, still knowing nothing about what the meeting was about, apart from what was told to me in the astonishingly vague letter they emailed me:
Anyway, there were three main complaints levelled at me (we're stepping aside the fact that the letter asked me to respond to the complaints in writing - kind of hard to do when you don't know what the issue is.
So - issue the first.
Last Tuesday, there were school groups who had outsourced their PE to us. Having just taught 50 kids for waterpolo (and it's primary school, so a good 40% of them aren't strong enough swimmers), I had a half hour break before teaching my [Nameless high school] waterpolo girls (my favourite kids ever). As I was about to get my lunch, I was asked by one of the other instructors to help her our because she was in charge of three lanes of kids. So I checked with the guy in charge of schools, and he said go for it. At 1400, when my [high school] girls arrived, I left the swimming lessons to teach the shift I was actually rostered to do.
The complaint was that I had left halfway through teaching their children how to swim. They had sent a letter of complaint. And that was the main reason for me being called in. Did I get to see the letter beforehand? No. Did I even get to see it in the meeting? No. Was it a complete ambush? Of course not.
I mean seriously. Chaps don't call chaps into meetings they know nothing about with the express intent of ambushing them. It's just not cricket.
Stepping past that, apparently another issue they had was related to the other primary school waterpolo group. Issue the second:
I teach these kids on mondays, and this school (bless them) only lets the strongest swimmers play waterpolo. So instead of 50 kids, some of which aren't strong enough, I have 20 kids, all of whom can hold their own. Having spent all of last week teaching them skills, they asked me if this week they could play a game the whole time. I said yes. Because why not. And the kids were having a ball (lololol, punny).
Anyway, at the same time, the new manager was being shown around. Apparently she was talking to the teachers, and they said that considering that the kids were just playing waterpolo for an hour, they didn't know if I had a lesson plan. Never mind the fact that I was periodically giving the kids feedback or tips.
So their complaint was that I seemed unprepared. Did they raise their concerns with me during the lesson? No. They did not. But that's their choice. Whatever.
Slightly related to this was the fact that it's hard to get the attention of a whole bunch of kids who are in the water thrashing about. There always used to be whistles for the teachers to use. For some reason, the [Unnamed corporation] do not feel it necessarily to provide coaches with whistles. That's their choice, and I can see the health reasons for it. But they could at least tell us in advance that we need whistles. More irritating is the fact that for the first time in the two years I have been teaching schools waterpolo, we haven't had access to the women's waterpolo shed, in which lie all of the child and women's size balls. All I have access to is the men's waterpolo crate. This is an issue because primary school kids can't grip the men's size balls (shut up, I'm aware of the innuendo). This is also an issue because my [high school] girls actually compete, and probably ought to be training with the ball they will be playing games with. Indeed the issue was so acute that I purchased, at my own expense, a women's ball just so that I could train them.
But again, considering the quality of organisation, I shouldn't be surprised.
What really bugged me was the fact that they now want me to submit written lesson plans ahead of each class. And they'll be supervising my waterpolo shifts to "provide me with the support I need". It took effort not to laugh at that statement in the meeting. I did, however, manage. Go me.
The third complaint was the fact that parents find issue with my "voice" and the fact that my body seems "imposing". Not my body LANGUAGE. My BODY. So starting with that issue. I thought it best not to go off in the meeting about the fact that whilst parents can feel free to be dickbags and complain about the fact that I seem imposing, management cannot complain to be about that fact. I mean seriously.
I mean I could have, but considering the fact that I'm being paid exorbitant amounts to do what I do, and the fact that I can bitch about it on the internet later, I can sit there in silence for a while whilst my intelligence is insulted by some people who use the word 'youse' (I'm not kidding. It popped up about three times in that meeting).
And now onto my voice. Apparently parents find my voice "unpleasant" and "unappealing". As far as I could tell (and by this point in the meeting I was trying my best not to explode into a cloud of righteous indignation, because again, cashy money; so I wasn't really asking for much explanation), parents don't like my voice. Again, not my TONE of voice, but my VOICE. Maybe they don't like the accent. I don't know, and I don't particularly care either.
But really, a sincere thank you to management for raising issue with physiological issues which I cannot change in the slightest. I'd consider legal recourse, but I can't think of many other places which will pay me $33.21 per hour (with loading on weekends) and only have three hour long shifts which generally fit around my timetable.
So that's my rant for the day (also, you'll note that at the advice of Stephen, I removed the original picture from facebook).
No comments:
Post a Comment