Randomnness - my old job

Wow what a night! I guess what I should say is what a weekend, thanks to snowmgeddon. But after hours of clearing the driveway, walkway and the car that was parked 2 blocks away, I really don't want to deal with anymore snow. And to top it off, I had to go to the grocery store today. Good god, that sucked!!!

But anyways, like most people out there, I watched the Superbowl tonight. I am so excited that the Saints won, but I'm a little disappointed with how the game ended. I hate when teams decided to kneel out the end of a game. I guess that's the hockey fan in me - you play til the end. I watched the trophy presentation and listened to the speeches. But then I realized since my Steelers didn't make it this year (but they will next year!), there wasn't going to be news coverage going on until the butt crack of dawn. On every friggin station! I realized that there was nothing but crap on tv so I started doing some more work on my latest crochet project. How is there nothing on tv when we have every station known to man?!? Anyway, Undercover Boss came on and that got me thinking of my old job. My former boss would never have gone undercover. She didn't even want to do her own job!

I worked in child care. When I started there it was a year after GG started going there. It was rough at the start but after she adjusted, she was learning so much and doing so well. When I started there, I loved the job. The people were great, the kids were adorable! But after a year or so, it started going downhill. People were hired who had no business being there. When they did show, hey did a half ass job. When they didn't show... well, there was rarely any consequences. So of course they pulled those kind of stunts ALL the time! GG was in the Pre-K program at the time and I knew she would be out of there soon. It was Little Dude I was worried about. I didn't want him to have a teacher that didn't teach or a teacher that rarely came to work in the first place. And then the stresses got to me. It was to the point that I could no longer separate work from home. I was so stressed at work that I would come home and do nothing but yell at the kids. Then I would get even more stressed at home and bring those emotions in to work with me. It was a recipe for disaster. My final breaking point - ratios not being followed. For each age group, there is a specific number of kids that 1 teacher can be in charge of. If the group is mixed ages, then you follow the ratios for the youngest age group.

I walked in one morning at 8:30 to see a room full of kids. There were close to 30 kids with 2 teachers. The youngest kids in the room were a year old. So with 2 teachers, legally there should have been no more than 10 kids in the room. I took a group out of this room into my own thinking I was helping them out only to find the other teacher who worked in my room already had 10 kids. Again, they were mostly 1 year olds.

And before I go any further I want to clarify that the higher ups knew about this problem. Complaints were made and the state was called. It never failed that when someone from the state showed up to verify these claims, there were hardly any kids in the building.

My boss was told by her boss to keep enrolling but there was no need to hire anybody new. Please tell e that makes sense to you, because it surely makes no sense to me!

With the crappy employees, this center had a very hard time passing any accredidations they tried to get. These accredidations enable the center to get more grant money and ranks the center higher. All of these problems led to a bitchy boss. She was tired of complaints from employees and parents and tired of her bosses telling her to do a better job. She was so friendly and helpful when I started, but when I left, she hid in her office all day and didn't talk to anyone. She wasn't a bad person, but, like me, I think she just stopped caring. I think she knew that going undercover like the people in this show wasn't going to prove anything. She already knew what was going on. Nobody listened to the employees and nobody seemed to listen to her. It seemed all the higher ups cared about was money.

It's funny how a post that starts about a stupid show turns into a vent about my old job and why I left. But I have mentioned it a few times and I needed to get some of this out. Thanks for listening, er, reading! I think I'll get back to my project for a bit.

Until next time...

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I watched that show last night nad it was GREAT,. I think big bosses need to do that more and see what it is like on the other end of the spectrum. I wish a CEO would come do my hubby's job for a day.. rofl yeah so not happening

Kmama said...

I wish I would have been awake enough to watch that show.

Daycare has got to be one of the hardest jobs ever. I could never do it.

Shell said...

I watched that show, too. I was cracking up at the guy's attitude about cleaning up the portapotties. That guy was awesome!

I thought about working in a daycare and having my boys be there with me. But, I interviewed in one where there was chaos all around and couldn't imagine putting my kids there.

Sally said...

Well, doggone, I wanted to watch that and missed it!

Here from SITS.

Have a wonderful day!!

Anonymous said...

you have the ton of chanells and nothin g to watch blues too? Glad to know its not just me;)

Unknown said...

I have never heard of that show. Is it new? I swear you would think I am an ostrich with my head in the sand...I never seem to know anything about any of the shows everyone is talking about.