Shit That Can't Be Made Up: Part 3,456,900 (Will Corey Hart Write a Song About This?)

 I wish I could make this shit up. This is so inane. 

Last month there was a mass prep that I covered. It was a beautiful outside. What a gift for the students as well as the staff covering the prep. 

The sun was bright that morning as it was glistening off the artificial turf that afternoon. I wanted to be ready.

And I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can, so I can
Keep track of the visions in my eyes

Thankfully, I was prepared. I had my sunglasses with me. I never had prescription sunglasses before. But I went on Zenni Optical and found a great pair with a retro look.

A kind of glamour
You can lend yourself
Like dark sunglasses

I left my regular glasses in a bag upstairs in a classroom. When the mass prep ended I walked back into the school, up the stairs and down the hall to retrieve my regular glasses. Let me let all in on something. The sun does not shine inside a school building. However, due to the fact that I can't see very good without either my glasses or my contact lenses I erred on the side of caution and left my sunglasses on. Ostensibly I did this for the sole reason not to walk into a wall, to walk into or on a student, and basically to see where I was going. 

And I wear my sunglasses at night
So I can, so I can
See the light that's right before my eyes

 

As I am walking down the hall to the classroom where my glasses are awaiting me the nouveau junior administrator sees me and proclaims authoritatively ...

"Mr Zucker, teachers are not allowed to wear sunglasses inside."

She cuts my security
Has she got control of me?

 

I promptly replied that I was on my way to the classroom to get my glasses. Ten seconds after I gave that response I thought of a better. I should have immediately removed the sunglasses and walked face first into the wall. 

"But Pete," one reading this blog might ask, "Maybe she did not know that those sunglasses were prescription or that you were outside on a mass prep."

Yes, that is a lucid plausible argument to be made. However, I wear glasses every day so therefore should not one be able to infer that the sunglasses are prescription? Besides, if you are the nouveau junior administrator you should know when mass preps are scheduled. 

 

The Crack Team was quickly assembled and assigned to research Chancellor's Regs. The Crack Team unable to come across any regulation stating that teachers are forbidden from wearing sunglasses inside any NYC DOE building or property. The Crack Team also checked NYS DOE regulations and came up empty. 

 

One would assume that with everything going on within the schools of the NYC DOE a teacher walking down the hall, wearing sunglasses after being outside in the sun, would be way, way down on the priority list. 

 

I cry to you
I wear my sunglasses at night in school
I wear my sunglasses

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Comedy of So-Called Comity

 One more thing I want to add in regard to my most recent blog post of June 9. There is one thing I did not get off my chest. 

This accusation...

that I have bad mouthed colleagues since 2016 every spring due to "getting phone calls every April and May like clockwork" that I have besmirched a colleague I work with "yet again," 

Completely unfounded.  There is no there there. 

Now the person that made this accusation has deemed it upon themselves to determine that there is to be a certain comity amongst teachers. My accuser is time and time again implying how I personally am destroying the comity between teachers with this blog. But that begs the question. Why am I the one being shat upon? 

I sat though a 3020-a process in which colleagues of mine testified against me. Does this promote comity amongst teachers? Some of these teachers were at an invitation only happy hour four years ago. What about others within the district that have gone through the 3020-a process and have had teachers testify against them? One can say that goes against the standards are comity. Yet there is silence. 

What about chapter leaders that do the principal's bidding? Is it safe to assume one looks the other way at this non-comity issue?

I'm going to reiterate what I wrote on Thursday. We as teachers have enough anxiety worrying about the crap we get from the DOE day in and day out. But in a weird way, it is to be expected. What we should not expect nor tolerate? It's is being treated by those who we look towards to protect us and to act in our best behaving as the DOE. 

Sadly, it is all too often becoming the norm that the very people teachers are looking to comfort us, to fight for us,  and to protect us are seemingly turning against us. I'm not the only one in which this is happening. Teachers being attacked and screamed at on the street for exercising their rights. Teachers verbally abused in bars. 

We know how to fight back against those that have it ingrained in the job description to do us bad. But how do we fight back against those who are there to protect us but literally are doing all they can to target specific teachers and doing us harm?

Don't Be a Pinocchio

 I've wrote a couple of posts in the last month or so about liars and talking smack behind one's back.  In fact I shared about how SBSB super groupie Trixie and how someone went behind her back. I can empathize with her. I know the feeling. Due to a former groupie going behind my back. The feeling sucks. As the saying goes, "Say anything you want about me as long as it is true."

But that is small potatoes. 

We all have people that we put our trust in. To share things confidentially. A lawyer, a clergy person, a medical doctor, a therapist, a union representative. Those relationships and what is said are sacrosanct. 

So when somebody calls me misogynistic or claims that I have bad mouthed colleagues since 2016 every spring due to "getting phone calls every April and May like clockwork" that I have besmirched a colleague I work with "yet again," I feel I need to speak up. 

Let's take the first accusation. That I am misogynist. What would trigger such a person to claim that? This blog post from February of 2021. Read it. Yeah, I am snarky. I am sarcastic. One might even claim that I took God's name in vain. But I where was I misogynist? Please. If you make an accusation, OWN IT! PROVE IT! 

Let's move on. 

So apparently this person is "getting phone calls every April and May like clockwork." Again, where is the proof?  I come from a place where if one makes an accusation you back it up. 

I went back in the blog and checked out all blog posts from  2016-2022. Checking March, April and May of each year. Nothing. Here are links for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Check out March-April for each year. Or just look to the right -----> and check out the blog archive. 

I can't find one blog post in which I besmirched a teacher I had worked with. Yes, there are several blog posts about a former candidate for UFT President, but I neither taught with this person nor care what this person thinks. Even the blog post from February 2021 I just stated the facts. I didn't editorialize.

And guess what? I am not the only gadfly that this person has talked smacked and took their tongue and told fibs about. Is it a coincidence that this gadfly is Jewish? There can be a perception that this person telling lies and creating accusations might have anti-Jewish leanings.

We as teachers have to constantly live in fear and worry about being targeted by the DOE day after day. To have to live with those same feelings from someone that we put our trust in, look to for guidance, for empathy, to a shoulder have this happen damaging.

 

A Semi Stream of Consciousness About Retiring Coming Closer

 Last year I was excited and looking forward to the end of the school year. For those that didn't know or are new readers to the blog, I was excitedly counting down the days to the last day. I had personal a reason in which I won't delve much into other than to say I had an Albatross which I needed gone. It took longer than I had hoped.

So this year? I have mixed feelings. The school year is soon  to be over and the next school year is around the corner. But, it is one more year closer to being a retired retired. One more year older. 

I was having a tough time with this retirement thingy yesterday. My son had decided to stay through June upstate and I was bitching about it yesterday (not to him). But it was hitting me that next year he graduates and he'll soon be on his own. He turns twenty one at the end of the month, and time is flowing faster and faster.

Hey, I am sorry if I am getting mushy with "feelings," and whatnot. But the best way to feel better sometimes is to share. One former SBSB groupie whilst sharing feelings told me to "be a man." I think being a man is talking about your feelings. I mean I can be some mama's boy musclehead with tattoos and deep insecurity instead. That for sure is not a man. But I'll much, much rather be me.

However, I have digressed. Back to this retirement thingy.

One thing I am contemplating is working for the Post Office. I actually ran into my letter carrier last night and we had a discussion. He told me that one is never too old for the Post Office, that do not be a letter carrier, but rather, mail handler. I can do that. Along with my pension I'll start at over $19/hr plus overtime at the PO. Not bad. But the thoughts of working for someone, especially a Post Office manager, doesn't appeal to me much. 

A friend of mine and myself have always discussed opening a deli. But it's all about location.The food business is risky.

Car sales or some other kind of sales job seems enticing. Or I can be a greeter at Wal Mart.

One thing that keeps going through my head is to be creative. Something I should've focused on at SUNY-Purchase. 

I'll figure this thing out soon. 

I will not move to Florida under any circumstances. No 4:30 dinners for me!!

But retirement is coming. I'll be 65 in seven years. There better not be Medicare (Dis)Advantage awaiting me.