Why I Should Never Teach

Since leaving university with my fancy pants degree (i.e my incredibly expensive bit paper with ENGLISH typed onto it), roughly every six months or so, I decide that maybe I should share my bottomless wisdom with the world (pfft!) and give something back to society by becoming a teacher.  I think this has more to do with my freakish love for the educational system than any true vocational calling, as during these flirtations with career choice, I often forget that:

1. I'm terrified of most people, let alone children.  And when I do meet a child, I'm torn between stiffly patting them on the head, shaking their hand, or running madly around with them, gaining their trust and then proceeding to steal their sweets.  I don't have a natural affinity with those vertically challenged mites.
2. Even the mere prospect of public speaking makes me want to theatrically piss my pants just so that I can escape the situation.
3.  I have a serious problem with eye contact.  I can barely maintain eye contact with my nearest and dearest for prolonged periods.  How am I supposed to hold the attention of 30-odd kids or teens for an hour at a time?  And how will I know which kid is which if I can't bloody look at them?!
4. I use "colourful" language so often that curse words have become second fucking nature to me in my everyday twatting speech.  Fuck.
5. I am incredibly clumsy.  Accidents find me.  After thousands of pounds' worth of teacher training, I will be sacked on my first day for smacking a child full on in the face whilst making big hand gestures as I speak.  And if not for that, I will be forcefully escorted from the building for tripping over my feet and ended up landing face first in some poor, traumatised teen's lap. 

Further proof of how terrible a mentor to the adults of tomorrow I would be came today, when I was asked to show the new girl at work how some simple stuff is done in the office.  It turns out my natural approach to teaching is:

• Getting on with what I do normally, but at twice the speed to get the demonstration over and done with.
• Talking at lightspeed, without pause - therefore leaving no time for the new girl's questions but lots of opportunity for me to stammer and make even less sense than normal.
• In a frenzied bid to make new girl feel welcome, nodding way too much at everything she says and laughing like a nutter every time she opens her mouth:

N.G: "Could you pass me the stapler?"
Me: "HAHAHAHAHAHA!!...Oh.  Yes."

• In further bid to make new girl feel at home and reassured, every time she makes a small mistake, instead of correcting her, I word-splurge apologetically about it and hope she gets the point:

"No, we don't normally put that there, but fuck it, it doesn't matter - leave it there, it's a stupid rule anyway.  Filing stuff away.  Put it there.  Or wherever you want.  Sorry.  It's okay there. Or whatever. HAHAHAHA!"

Constantly tell new girl that I am a crap teacher and that "they" never should have trusted clumsy old me to show someone what to do. Don't know why they've not fired me yet.  Ho ho, ha ha.

Mess.



Think I'll stick to the pursuit of earning money with sweet, sweet words.  At least then I won't have to tell anybody what to do...

 

Becky's Guide To Life: Employment Enjoyment

Part 1: How To Suck All Potential Fun Out Of Your Work Day

1. Look at the clock every twelve seconds and complain about how it seems to be moving backwards.

2. Think and talk incessantly about food from the second bum is planted on seat.

3. Over think everything you say to your colleagues. They obviously all think you're a massive tool.

4. Complain about being bored whilst staring wistfully into space. Pick at nails.

5. Sigh.

6. Bury every bit of criticism management give you in brain for use during future meltdowns and "oh fuck, I'm getting fired!!!" Crises.

7. Avoid conversation with colleagues where possible.

8. Look at the clock some more.

9. Decide you hate any and all customers before you speak with them.

10. Fantasise about other, better jobs you could be doing right now because you're, like, so under appreciated in this one....pick nails and look at clock.




Part 2: Holy Beeps, Bruce, This Is Fun!! AKA How To Enjoy Your Job (even if you're not a cake tester or super hero.... Yet)

1. Take full advantage of spinny chairs. Wheeeeee!!

2. Doodle whenever the opportunity arises.

3. Laugh along at all the brilliant, ridiculous things your peers tell you. Feel inwardly chuffed when they laugh with (*cough*at*cough*) you.

4. Get stuck the fuck in. Whatever you're doing. Enthusiasm = faster hours (not too much enthusiasm, though. I once smacked myself in the face with a phone before I could bellow any "hello"s down it).

5. Smile. But only if you feel like it.

6. Build something out of paperclips/stationary... E.g binder clip robot

7. Make effort to recall weird customers, and later regale others with tales of their screwiness for mid afternoon giggles. Unless you're a psychiatrist. Confidentiality and that...

8. If someone brings in cake, love them forever, eat the cake, and spend the following week reminding everyone how good the cake was, so that people feel obliged to bring in more cake.

.......CAAAAAKE!!!

9. Drink so much coffee that you leave the office in spirit and enter a new dimension where everything takes on a buzzy, cartoonish quality (when in reality, you're freaking your co workers out by giggling and shivering at them).

10. Realise that, despite the ghoulish mass moaning about the pay, the hours, the boredom etc etc, you probably never would have had the luck to meet any of the people you get to spend at least 8hours a day with, faffing,laughing and eating, five days a week if you hadn't worked there. And you know for a fact, that wherever your life takes you next, you know you'll remember the good WAY more than the bad, and part of you might even miss it a little.


Aww.


Retch.

2013: You Can Do Eet!!

Happy slightly-belated-because-I-was-hung-over-yesterday New Year!!!

If your New Year's Eve celebration was anything like mine, you spent it in a friend's house, talking way too loudly and enthusiastically in your loved ones' faces and waiting for the moment you were allowed to set the poppers off. The things that go "bang!", not the...y'know...poppers... It wasn't that kind of a party.

...Mine had a round of The Big Bang Theory board game in it, so it was better than yours. Obvs. Or sadder. Depends on which way you look at it. Whatever, my team won! Give me a big, posh "hooray!"

I have great, big, sexy feelings about 2013. Yesterday, I had nauseous, hungry and sleepy feelings, but a dangerous nap in the bath in the middle of the day (because I like to live dangerously) followed by an early bedtime has left me feeling pretty optimistic today!

One of my favourite things about the new year is making resolutions I almost never...no, wait, never keep. And up until now, (and I think that this is what most people do too) they have mostly been based around making myself a bit less shit. Here are some familiar ones that might overlap some, if not all fellow resolut...ers' (?!) January to-do lists:

* stop biting nails
* be less wobbly/rotund/jiggly/skinny-impaired than previous years
* get off arse and exercise til lady-beefcake style buff
* be less socially inept
* kill less often

Sound familiar? ... The last one was a joke, by the way.

*hastily nudges hatchet behind sofa with foot*

In recent months, I've had the odd epiphany that has brought me to my temporary sanity, and looking at these old, pretty pointless and ultimately stress inducing goals, I've realised that if I were to choose a resolution from such a list this year, I'll do what I always do. And this means sitting on the sofa, wailing and fretting about not achieving my new "goals" for a while, and then biting my nails, stuffing myself with chocolate and sleeping because it's February and I'm not Wonder Woman yet.

This year I'm doing something different. I have allowed myself two achievements that I want bragging rights to by 2014, and neither of them involve changing myself too drastically. And I know that failing to achieve them won't leave me sobbing in my jammies about what a lardy, lazy she-klutz I am. And this lack of pressure makes them feel much more achievable. By the end of the year, I want to:

*run at least a 10k race
* get paid for at least one piece of writing. Any writing.

Easy peasy! And to make me feel even better about this decision, the fates have handed me a bit of luck already! My manager overheard me talking about wanting to write anything at all for money, and instead of firing me on the spot, he's arranged for me to meet a freelancer friend for advice and lunch on Friday. I love advice! I love lunch!!

Mmm. Lunch.

But, seriously, handful of mostly anonymous readers... My soppy bit of advice (you listening, self?!), stop trying to change yourself and just get on with just doing stuff. Less worrying, more scurrying!

2013.... The Year of Doing!

*nods self importantly, gets up with purpose, heads to fridge*