Perspective

It's got to be my word of the week. Perspective. I have used it so many times. People's lack of 'it' is simply driving me to insanity. Today, it drew me to tears. It happened like this...

.....The morning was awful. The children just have a huge lack of respect for each other and the adults within the school. I had to deal with a rubbish supply teacher and an even worse supply classroom assistant, who we are paying, for not a lot of work! I then had a sobbing child, disclosing information to me about her home life which really just shouldn't need to happen.

I entered the staffroom for a sit down and just a couple of minutes to catch my breath before spending an time planning. My head was about to explode!

Enter the nursery staff, coming to eat their lunch. One staff member completely lost it because there wasn't a plate big enough to hold her beans on toast. She then went and 'borrowed' some from breakfast club which just happened to belong to the breakfast club leader (who'd brought her home crockery in as they have got extra children this week!), who happend to see the crime and followed her to find out what she was doing!

Sitting innocently in the corner, trying to process everything that happened in the previous two hours, all I could hear were these two TAs yelling at each other about plates...who they belonged to, who could use them, where the real plates were, the fact that the children in the school are obviously thought more of than the staff, blah, blah, yell, yell and I just lost it!

I shouted above their voices, "stop, stop, stop.....They're plates. Get over it. I've had a horrible morning, you don't need to know that and you can't do anything about it, but please, stop yelling." At which point I just burst into tears!

Absolutely crazy! Now there are people out there who only see my harsh exteria and think I am hard as nails and don't cry (maybe that's a perception of Northerners?!) but it is competely untrue. I just lost it!

I went on to apologise again and asked that they simply get a little perspective. I left shortly after. Annoyed that I had let 'stuff' get to me, annoyed that 'stuff' makes my children the way they are and annoyed that there are adults, in the same work place as me, don't see what I see and are so selfish that the size of their bread and that size of their plate is worth yelling about.