“I feel like the captain of the Titanic”
So, sitting in the canteen after the meeting I, my boss and S are watching the lunch queue. “Oh, that reminds me,” says the boss, “I gotta meet with LH after this”. I ask him to point her out to me. Last week at work, Friday it was, I walk in and someone goes ‘ah, LH is on the phone and wants to talk to you’. She says a few things but mainly wants my project out of the ‘main area’ and onto laptops in the back room; wants me not to use the SPC (in house) paperwork and to design our own booking-in form and provide a list of all the learners contact numbers ‘in case I’m off sick and we need to contact them’. So anyway, I did do that for her but it was our first encounter and it could have gone better.The boss buggers off to talk to LH across the canteen on the sofas whilst S talks about his family argument this morning, which subsequently made him half an hour late for the meeting. Some cousin who was a relative of his ex wife said he disgraced and shamed the family. She’d spread rumours that he’d physically and mentally abused her – which he hadn’t he assured me. He was at this family gathering and there were about 200 people there. “All of them,” he said, “every single one of them didn’t say one word to me all day. I hadn’t heard that she’d said those things about me and I was thinking ‘why’s no one speaking to me?’" I tell him about the DSU business with J and how she wants me out and all that guff. He said he hadn’t seen her for 8 months. He said she was ‘grooming’ him and getting him into situations that would flow into certain scenarios. “I was gutted. I thought I was her mate! I was having none of it”. I mentioned that her grooming worked on me and how I regret it now. He comes over all ‘hey! Geezer!’ on me, slapping my hand.
The boss comes back. “Thought I should let you know that LH has just said that a learner has just made a complaint about you in Sh. Don’t lose any sleep over it but she saying that our project is ‘stealing’ her learners, SPC learners!”.
“You’re fucked,” says S. “Look around.” He pans with his hand at the canteen full of lunching staff. “All educated, middle class, middle-aged women. Look at us bruv. The wrong sex and the wrong colour”.Ju comes over. In the building for a ‘fire wardens’ course. Her and a TA on a little day off from the grind of the SPC. Ju, who has the manager’s position at a different Centre to the one I’ve applied for mangers job at, leans over and says in my ear that “I think I have the questions from my interview at home. I’ll email them to you if you like? Oh, and get a management how to do it book out. It might help.” I nod; “I will do. Thanks”. And off she goes saying “I’m gonna learn how to use a fire extinguisher now! Bye!”
The meeting was about the end. “I feel like the captain of the Titanic,” says the boss. And he was. Project ends end Dec 06, maybe 6 months early if the targets aren’t met. But if the targets are met; then it’s the end of the project. Looking like the end of the summer. Literacy and numeracy needs are higher now than ever. Surely the project should be expanding? We cite growing class sizes and waiting lists. How the paperwork’s running smoothly. How we love the fucking job. How the learner’s love it! “Start looking for another job now is what I would recommend. I wouldn’t mind if you had to leave the project.”
Anyway, so much for Paulo Friere’s ‘Pedagogy of the Opressed’
Curry last night with JP was a hit! Nice food - chick pea and prawn madra, sag paneer, peshwari rice and nan. Nice wine. We toast the 'curry club'. Me And You And Everyone We Know and Infernal Affairs III on DVD. A few nice texts from S finished off a lovely night. off out now for P&J's fare well meal at the Morroccan reastaurant in Canterbury.
posted by DJCabbaged @ 7:30 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home