More Fun with Turns-on-Her-Heels

I've made no secret of the fact that, once I get my MA, I expect to be doing a job not unlike LM's. I've told him this and that I'm watching how he handles things with professional detachment. What I haven't told him is, I think he's doing an impossible job. We walked down to the local shops together last night - it's a pleasant walk if you go the right way, along a tree lined and very quiet lane, bordered by some very wild looking cattle pasture on one side.

He said he was asking me as a friend, Did I think his management was ok, and he was asking this because he could not deal with TOHH, and it was being suggested to him by his line manager, HD, that perhaps his "management style" was to blame. He also told me that she'd knocked on his door on Friday (day off for everyone), saying that she couldn't stand this anymore, something had to be done NOW, and then when he tried to reply she, well, turned on her heels.

I was quite relieved to be able to let off steam about her myself. She's taken this job without thinking. This is not an easy situation for someone whose only interest in life appears to be shopping. So, OK, she made a mistake, but then she could give notice - EFL teachers can walk into any city in the non-English speaking world and find a job within hours, if not minutes. There's no excuse whatsoever to feel chained down.

But she seems to rather whine, complain and unsettle the troops. She seems to have fixed on LM as the cause of her woes, claiming to have been lied to at her interview. This is all a bit much, LM is a genuinely decent bloke who's rather good at his job. And I doubt he fibbed at the interview - why would he? I think she probably heard "swimming pool" and didn't hear an future markers. (As if a daily swim will keep her inner misery at bay...)

Things have apparently come into sharper relief for LM and TOHH because of her five-week review where he had to record her attitude as "unsatisfactory". (The Company's form only gave a choice between that and "satisfactory", ffs: what else could he do?)

This afternoon I was sitting in my window with my shisha pipe and The Sopranos on the laptop, and TOHH went by and asked me if I had an Internet connexion. I said that I did, but that it was very slow. She said, "I haven't had a connexion all morning." And then she stood there and just looked at me as if waiting for a reply, for what seemed like a very long time. She didn't look right. She really shouldn't be here.

On the other hand, LM told me, the feedback he gets from her students is very satisfactory. I'm not too suprised by that. She is one of those EFL teachers who almost worship their learners, advocating for them almost as a parent would. I've met quite a lot of teachers like that, mostly middle aged childless women, like TOHH. On the surface, it's an attitude which passes for devotion to the job. Actually, I consider it to be unprofessional: one needs to be good natured and courteous, but you're not going to take them out for a burger and a milkshake at the end of the class.

During our walk, LM speculated on "If", (not "When") this contract's teddy bear event will come. This thought cheered me up no end: the scenario of angry crowds outside the college, and HD escorting TOHH to the airport, fielding phone calls from The Sun and The Daily Mail as he did so... Incidentally, reading between the lines, the teddy-bear teacher looks like a classic student worshipper. And look what happened to her.