organizational failures

So I have been waiting for keys to my classroom since school started. I switched rooms from last year to this year, which, while a little annoying, is not that uncommon. (At least I had all summer to set up, much better than the fact that I switched MID-SCHOOL YEAR during my first year.) I've asked the custodians to make me copies, I've asked the office staff, I've checked with the principal, etc. So I've just been leaving everything unlocked all the time. But there's always nothing anyone can do, and I get sent to someone else to ask, because the teacher who had my room last year never left her keys before she moved to Antigua. (Which is most definitely part of the checklist you have to get filled out before you leave the building on the last day of school, so I'm not sure how that happened, but that's besides the point.) Finally I was sick of it, so I borrowed another teacher's keys last night (they are all the same for our floor) to go make copies. I spent a couple of bucks to get one for my room, one for the teacher's lounge, and even some new hasps for my cupboards since they still have locks on them that the teacher in Antigua must have the keys to. (Getting the custodians to actually come in and install them so my cupboards will be usable... well if it happens in the next month I will be SO happy.)

I walk in this morning, pretty much ready to do, and our secretary says, "Oh! Ms. A! We got your room keys!" And holds them triumphantly in the air. Like I haven't been asking for them for over 2 weeks.

I'm aware this story isn't all that funny, but it does illustrate some of the institutional nonsense that I have seen at every school I've ever worked at or even visited. This is a common, every day thing. You are chasing people around to get copies of some data chart you need to get filled out, show up for a meeting to discuss it, get turned away because your AP is in another meeting, get called back 10 minutes later, and then get told you did the whole thing wrong. Or you drive to the district office to pick up some forms, get assured you have the right ones by the staff there, and then are told to turn around and go back by your testing coordinator because they gave you the wrong thing. (Oh yeah, both of those things happened this week too.) Could we all just keep in mind that we have children to teach, so we probably have other shit to do that doesn't involve total nonsense?

To wrap the story up on a happy note, it turns out that our art teacher didn't have keys either. So the copies I made were not in vain, the couple of dollars I spent to do it were not wasted, and now we are all able to get in and out of the places that we work at every day. Excellent.