Quotes from the day

Y7 kid : "Miss, I’m going on holiday to Spain on Friday !"
Me: “Oh, lucky you, I love Spanish food!”
Y7 kid: “Me too, especially MacDonalds, it tastes much better in Spain!!”

Girl from my Y8 form: “Miss, can you have a word with Quietgirl (another girl from the form)”
Me: “What happened?”
Girl: “Well, she’s spreading rumours about me. She’s saying that I don’t wear a bra!”
(Oh rage and outrage, I can’t decide between burning Quietgirl or making her hang upside down for a day for saying such a horrid thing!)

Y10 kid, at the end of a long explanation about UMS grades for GCSE:
“Miss, so how many M&Ms is my coursework worth then?”
(three, one blue, one yellow and one red, you monkey!)

Bunch of incompetents going, going, gone!

Here's the thing. I have worked in an office. For a month. Updating a massive backlog of addresses for Norwich union. And I know how it works. There was 4 different systems on which to find change of addresses as communicated to them, one of which could only be accessed by the "Perpetua" of the section (Bridget Jones fans will understand). There was about 10 different letter templates addressed to lots of different people to try and find an address for one of the mysterious "goneaways" (no really, that was their names). I was tempted to write one to Father Christmas and see if I could get away with it!
Just to say that I know what's going on there and I'd never work in an office of my own accord.
Episode one of the "Neighbours' adventure in Northallerton". We move in mid-August 2006, to reduce the length of my commuting to work. Among the pile of letters waiting for us was one from Powergen, welcoming us to their network, blablabla. We didn't take any action, as Matt had set up Scottish Power (previous provider) to do the change of address automatically.
After two months, in October, we get a hefty bill of 150£ for gas and electricity. Thinking that maybe the change of address with Scotts hadn't gone through, we phone both Powergen and Scottish to make sure. As we thought - internet changes of address forms not so great after all. So I make a request to change back to Scottish, seeing as though they're 3 times cheaper, and pay the bill at the post office. Bill is in the name "New Customer" but I give my name to Powergen, just so they can update their records.
After 4 weeks, Powergen have heard that we're leaving them and are inconsolable. 7 letters in 3 weeks, sometimes twice a day!! Honestly - even as a teenager I wasn't that desperate when blokes rejected me! How pathetic.
Anyway. We start paying bills to Scottish, Christmas comes and goes, and then in January, second episode of the drama: we get a bill from Powergen for 200 quid plus, to close the account. So I phone them, inform them that we've left them a while ago and that we already paid up 150 quid before we left, and the girl on the phone says, ah yes, but the bill was in the wrong account! But she's going to sort it out.
Two months later, new letter, "we're going to send the bailiffs" kind of niceties. A bit like in a divorce I guess: first you beg, then you get nasty. So I write to them, with copy of the bills we've already paid, saying that basically all we owe them is about 50 quid and we'll pay it as soon as they send us a bill. And you can't beat a teacher's seriously angry, telling-you-off and to-the-point tone. I do it all day long. And said teacher is Swiss and will not depart from any hard-earned money until proven guilty.


So I get an apologetic letter from a guy in the company, trying to make excuses for why there seems to be two accounts to the same address, for the same length of time, assures me that no, they're not charging gas and electricity twice (I know they are! Explanations are flimsy). I ask if I can get my final bill for 50 quid and a leaflet about their complaint procedure. Yes ma'am, it will be in the post tomorrow.
And guess what: three weeks on, I still haven't received either, but instead, I get another "nice" letter asking me to be pen-pals with the Debt Collection agency and blablabla. The thing is, even after the 20 minutes phone-call to their hopeless hotline I've just had, I don't believe this is the end of the story. Can't wait for the next episode, which of course will be posted here. How thrilling!
Can you take people to court for criminal incompetence?

A "pen" in the backside

Every now and then at school, there is a staff meeting scheduled, for staff to raise issues about anything they please. No one has yet had the guts to write "how did the head's affair with another member of staff start" or "is it really true that the governors' board has demanded both you and your lover are gone by September?". To be honest, the joke is a bit worn out now, apart for the other schools in the LEA, who apparently still find it hilarious. Anyway.
So instead, people try to hold off from writing anything on the agenda, so that we can all go home early (or more likely, write the 90 reports that are due next week). But not this time. Someone had to write "pupils' lack of equipment - what is the policy of the school". Unsurprisingly, it was a maths teacher.
So off we all go to the hall, where an extremely interesting discussion followed for about 45 minutes. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other pointless meetings we attend, but I thought this one was particularly revealing in the kind of suggestions people made. Mr Rottweiller (the maths teacher who raised the issue) suggested that form tutors should check that pupils have a pen, pencil and their equipment at least once a week and give detentions to those who failed to pass the test. Unsurprisingly, staff were not impressed at having to babysit yet more kids at lunchtime. Then Swiss national (yours truly) suggested the school should sell pens like they do ties or planners (to be frank, I've started my own business, Tesco value ones! At the pace I'm selling them and with the profit I make on them, I'll be a millionaire in 100 years). The Head saluted it as a positive solution. Mr Rottweiller said it did not teach kids to be responsible, so it wasn't good. Then Mr Webmaster suggested that we should have a special page on our computerised registration system so that there is a record of who did not have a pen when, and then follow up with detentions, or send letters home etc.
As usual, no solution was found. We were nearly at each others' throats by the end of the meeting (more accurately, at Mr Rottweiller's throat for going on and on about it and insisting on the detentions instead of dropping it). So I guess in the meantime I will keep getting notes from him informing me that Ritalin Kid and other of my tutees did not have a pen, pencil or calculator in his lesson (read "you're a bad form tutor, you should control their organisation better) while I will keep recycling his notes (they're the perfect size for 10-question-tests) and making a 4.7p profit on each pen I sell to beef up my bank account. I think I'll go shopping now!