Once again I have been convinced that my lunchtimes spent busying myself with work stuff is far more constructive than loafing around the vipers’ nest that is more commonly known as the staffroom.
On the wind down towards the end of term I’ve been sorely tempted to plonk myself down in the worn old armchairs and moan with my colleagues about some of the stuff I end up moaning about on here: the kids, mainly. But every time I’m about to do the deed, something happens to remind me that some teachers, regardless of their years of experience, find it hard to leave the playground mentality behind. There’s everything from snide comments about other staff members behind their backs to the spreading of completely unsubstantiated rumours, right up to verbal sparring and sleeves being rolled up for fisticuffs.
As far as I can work out from my thankfully limited dealings with staffroom politics, one of the worst perpetrators is a self important teacher of limited responsibilities. In fact, I believe that the distance I keep between myself and her witches’ huddle has given me a chance to develop an objective viewpoint.
Let’s call her Smeagol. There is a very good reason for this. In case you managed
to avoid the hype and haven’t seen the films or read the books, Smeagol is a
character from Lord of the Rings. Now, I’m going on the film versions here, so I
apologise in advance to purists and devotees of the written word. Smeagol is a
character with two personalities: one is sweet and helpful, and the other is
dangerously wicked. I’ll spare you the complexities, because that’s covered my most
important point here. The dangerous side to Smeagol makes his physical appearance
distorted and evil, but then a second later, almost in the blink of an eye or the
change of a camera angle, nice Smeagol returns and his features mellow and smoothen.
Actually, the only difference I can think of between Smeagol and my colleague is
that nice Smeagol shows remorse for the wicked side coming through.
Smeagol the teacher is dangerous indeed. Seemingly on good terms with most of the senior staff, she likes to promote the myth that she knows what’s going on in the school.
The other morning I missed our daily pre-school meeting. I bumped into Smeagol the
teacher and asked her if I’d missed anything important, and for my response I was
treated to a caustic comment about another staff member returning from long term
sick leave. She hissed her opinions with a face distorted by a snarl, proffering
more information than you’d sensibly give a passing acquaintance. It jogged my
memory that I’d overheard Smeagol the teacher moaning about the sick colleague to
another staff member the previous week.
But then what did I see later that day? Smeagol the teacher and the now recovered
sick colleague deep in smiley conversation, no doubt catching up with all that missed
gossip. Smeagol the teacher had a look of saintly concern on her face, and I really
can’t imagine how she lives with herself knowing that she can be so two-faced.
Maybe that is preferable to another battle between personalities that I am unfortunately privy to. Well, not so much privy to, as being dragged into the middle of somebody else’s quarrel. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have previously written about Annoying Colleague, and yes, he is still throwing his weight around. He is still trying to assert his authority over a few unwilling members of staff who refuse to accept it, for whatever reasons, some of which I have deduced are petty jealousies. Sometimes the staffroom is impossible to avoid, and I happened to be scuttling in and out when Annoying Colleague and another, whom I shall call Petulant Colleague, were squaring up to each other like stags about to lock horns. I’d have preferred to knock their heads together or at least let them fight it out to the death with biros and other pointed instruments, but now there’s talk of getting the Governors involved.
In case you don’t know, the Governors are not a firm of hard old bastards who run shady deals (although they may well be in their own time), but are instead the volunteers who make up the governing body of the school, like a sort of House of Lords to the senior management team’s House of Commons, if I understand correctly. Vicars and librarians they may be, but they scared the hell out of me at my interview, and I’d rather not have to face them again. Plus, whatever version of events I try to recount will no doubt be seen by one side or the other as biased.
Therefore, the Christmas spirit has not favoured our school kindly, or at least it hasn’t touched some of the staff. I’m now reduced to counting the hours rather than days until the final bell of the year rings and I can stop thinking about feuding staff, and the ungrateful selfish children who seem to surround me, for two whole blessed weeks.
added 20/12/04
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