I once worked in a very big school, and I was not a full staff because I was serving my country. If you’re serving Nigeria, you can’t be a full staff of your workplace until you are retained there. The service always last for a year. So I was posted to a big school. I was not the only one running that program, but one other lady. Her name is Fortune. We both were paid lesser than every other staff in the school and we even worked more than them all because we were there to learn.
I actually do not like the idea that we have to work harder than other staffs but we were still being paid less.
In the school, I was given the role of an assistant teacher and I worked alongside Mrs Asher. Things went well for about five months until it was time for the interhouse sports which was always very stressful. I then noticed some behaviors in Mrs Asher. She doesn’t respond when I greet her, she started doing everything all alone in the class including the ones I was meant to do. One day, I thought of asking her what I did.
”Hey, Mrs Asher. Can we talk about something?,” I asked her.
”Yes, but make it snappy,” it was obvious that she was angry. I could tell from her face but I already made up my mind to say what I wanted to say.
”I noticed that you changed your attitude towards me. If I greet, you won’t respond, we don’t even do things in class together anymore. What’s the problem or is there anything I did wrong?,” I asked her but she walked out on me. She hissed and walked out on me in the presence of the pupils.
I felt embarrassed and went to meet my supervisor, Mrs Alabi.
”Hello ma, I’d like to raise an issue,” I told her while I was breathing heavily because my stomach could not contain the embarrassment I had just faced.
”Uhm, I’d have loved to listen to you but you know I have things to do. Why not wait till Friday when we’d be having our weekly general meeting before you talk about it?,” she pleaded and I felt that was the best thing so that I can say it front of everyone.
I was patiently waiting till Friday and the day came. When it was 2:00 pm, every teacher went to the meeting venue. The meeting was full or arguments because a lot staffs do not like the new arrangement the school made. When it was time for Mrs Asher to speak, she said;
”Firstly, I don’t like the new arrangements because we all will be working too much and most of the things here are not necessary. How will we be writing test and be having our inter house sports preparation at the same time?. Also, a lot of people are complaining and even my assistant went to the head teacher about the things I do in class. It makes no sense to me and if you don’t like something, you can at least tell me about it instead of reporting me to the head teacher which resulted into a query,” Mrs Asher faced me and continued to shout.
Luckily, Fortune stood up and said she was the one who went to report to the head teacher about her method in class. Mrs Asher and Fortune argued for over ten minutes shouting at each other but I was wondering why Mrs Asher was angry at me in the first place thinking I was the one who reported to the head teacher. The both of them shouted for a while and later resolved the issue.
When we got to the class, I went to Mrs Asher to ask her why she accused me of telling the head teacher what I didn’t know about.
”Mrs Asher, what made you think I was the one who reported you to the head teacher and even if I did, you should have told me that you didn’t like what I did instead of acting up in class,” I said to her.
”The head teacher came to me and said one of the closest person to me reported me to her and you’re the one closer to me. That’s why I felt you were the one who reported me. I’m very sorry about how I was rude to you and how I was barking up the wrong tree,” she responded and we both hugged.
While we hugged, water rolled out my eyes because I feel she didn’t trust me enough. If she did, she was never going to think I reported her to the head teacher at first but I’m glad things went well and we can be good to each other as usual.