It's my own fault.
This year I am quite honestly flying by the seat of my pants. This means that my serious prep work takes place during my morning set-up. Every single day I have a meeting of some sort, and, even if I am lucky enough to get thirty or forty minutes to address my own work, it is often spent fielding ridiculous emails, mostly from companies that want my business now that our grade level has gone 100% 1:1 with technology.
Today I stay late to use the copy machine. I realize that the machine is almost out of toner, and I know damn well that means I won't get through my work, so I book it down to the main office to catch the secretary before she leaves so she can unlock the cabinet and hand me the toner. When I get back, someone has taken my place in line and started copying. The toner runs out, and, thank goodness for me, we replace it and move on. Eventually, I get my copies done ... well, mostly done before someone else comes in and needs to copy.
Grades close today, as well. I could take the last of the numbers home with me, or I could tack another thirty minutes on to my day and get them done at work, which is what I decide to do. There are a few other stragglers who, like me, decide to stay an extra hour or so rather than bring the work home with us ... still ... yet again. Oh, sure, I do bring work home with me, but it's mostly my busy work so I can, once again, fly by the seat of my pants come Monday morning.
The problem with this whole coming in early and leaving late crap, other than the fact that it means I have zero social life, is that my room is mere yards from the superintendent's office. He keeps a schedule similar to mine, and he often walks down the main hall in front of my room on his way to meetings or to get coffee. Today he takes his morning walk when I arrive and his afternoon walk while I (and several others) am still there.
This gets me to wondering: Does he think we are trying to impress him by arriving early and staying late? Or, even more obvious and slightly more depressing, does he think we cannot do our jobs and are staying late to cover our own asses?
At the end of the day (which is late today), I don't give a flying hootenanny what he nor anyone else thinks. My room is semi-organized, and my grades are calculated -- not ready to be sent to admin yet, but still. When I leave along with a colleague, it is getting dark and starting to rain, a fitting end to an otherwise crappy week, both personally and professionally.
But, we LEAVE at an almost-reasonable hour, no less. It's all good. I can make up that hour this weekend when we fall back. Arriving early and staying late will not, however, make up for the time I have already lost this week, but my habits are improving -- I only stayed late this once in five days. That in itself is an improvement over the first two weeks of school this year.
