Biding Time

I've made arrangements for my work to be covered while I'm indisposed. I worry that it might cause trouble for some of the students. I don't do well w.ith transitions, so I know what that can be like, but I should be taking over my own classes in a few weeks. Maybe I should take the whole quarter off. Maybe that would be easier for some of the students. Or maybe I should get back to work as soon as I can, after a week or two. I can't really take the quarter off. I don't have sick leave, and the short term disability will only pay as long as the doctor will sign off. Besides, STD only pays 60%.

I read the policy about time off. I want to rewrite it. I mean, the policy says something about working 40 hours a week. So can't I get credit for days missed when I work 50 or 60 hours in a week? Not what the policy says. It says, very clearly, that days missed must be made up during the next break. If not made up then, your pay is cut. There is no flexibility.

I can understand that. My dad was a school teacher, and talked about benefits, like sick leave. Teachers had a certain number of days. Some just used them, sick or not, each year. Days off, maybe for mental health. Others, like Dad, didn't use them, and stored them up over the years. When you retired, you could get paid for them, maybe half rate or something. I think Dad actually used a whole year of sick leave at the end of his career, after he had his stroke. But if you give employees sick leave, they use it.

With our benefits, it pretty much takes an emergency to get us away from work. Maybe that's better for the school. Lower rate of missing work. Kind of bad for morale, though, especially when we have to work over the break to make up missed days, even though we work more than the 40 required hours pretty much every week. I'd like to just tell Them (Powers-That-Be, bosses, whoever makes the policies), let me teach my classes and figure out my own schedule, and just pay me for getting the job done. Filling out two sets of forms, and paying my doctor to fill out his part, just so my job will be waiting when I get back is annoying. Makes me wonder if I shouldn't look for a better job.

I won't, though. Not right now. I've got this operation coming up, and the paper work is all done. Now, maybe I'm focusing on benefits, or detriments, and effects on students and stuff, so I won't obsess over the possible outcomes of the operation. And even that is just a distraction from my other distractions, books and TV. I know what could happen. I know it's likely everything will be fine. I know there's not much I can do, one way or the other.

I came up with another distraction for this evening. I asked a friend to dinner. She's a teacher I met a few years ago, not at my current school, but the one before. Then she came to my current school, and taught there for 3 years. She left a year ago, for health reasons. She was supposed to have an operation, but it has been delayed. I figure she will have some perspective on my situation, and it made an excuse to go out somewhere.

I'm not worried about the operation, but I could be if I tried. And I don't have much else to think about. That's kind of weird. I guess usually at this point, I would be thinking about classes next week, but when I'll only be there for a day, there isn't much to do to prepare. So I'm really glad there are lots of books I want to read.