I worked with toddlers and pre schoolers for three years. Sometimes I accidentally slip and tell a friend to say bye to an inanimate object (âsay bye bus!â) & occasionally they unthinkingly just do it.
Iâm glad thereâs a teacher version of âaccidentally called teacher âmomââ
when I worked at Medieval Times occasionally I would slip in real life and call people âmy lordâ
One time during family prayer, dad began: âour father who art in heaven, American Airlines, how can I help you?â
One time my dad went to the White Castle drive-thru and the lady (who was supposed to say âWelcome to White Castle, whatâs your crave?â) asked, âWelcome to White Castle, whatâs your problem?â
She apologized profusely while my dad proceeded to lose his shit laughing.
Yesterday I went to Wendyâs and the girl said âWelcome to McDonaldsâ and then just sighed
Somebody in the elevator asked me what floor I lived on, and I answered âplease open your books to page eightâ, and we just kind of stared at each other, blinking.
i work retail full time and my script gets frequently messy – ill ask the same question twice, or say â$2.60 is your totalâ while handing back their change, or say âhow are you doing today?â instead of âhave a good day!â like name it ive bungled it
but anyway, this lady came thru my line buying a book and the review on the front said: âfew books are well written, fewer still are important, and this book manages to be bothâ
as i handed her the bag i was trying to say âthanks, youre all setâ and instead my brain mashed up the review and i said âthanks, youre importantâ
there was this short pause in which i tried to figure out what the fuck id just said. she blinked and then said âoh thank you! youre important too!â
the real kicker was one of my coworkers. when i was relating this story later his response was âat least you said something NICE. last week i accidentally combined âyoure welcomeâ and âno problemâ into âyoure a problemââ
one time, since I used to work as a daycare teacher with preschoolers, i was on my college campus in my gym, and someone was running in the weight room and tripped over a machine and fell, and instead of offering to help, I just stared and said, âThis is why we use our walking feet.â
we both sat there for a while until the guy nodded and said, âyeah, okay, i shouldâve done that.â
Iâve spent a good chunk of time working in kitchens, so I still will reflexively say shit like âbehindâ and âcoming aroundâ as I maneuver through spaces and around people.
Which, actually, not such a bad thing; Iâm a big guy and can come across as imposing pretty easily. The position calls can help defuse that, and also help avoid collisions.
Less good is the time my brain was half functional and I let slip a âcoming with a knifeâ while grocery shopping. THAT took some explaining.
I work in an office and send tens of emails to customers every day. Once my mum asked me to send her a train ticket I had bought for her. I emailed her âHello mum, as agreed, please find attached the ticked you requested. Thanks, Alexâ
i worked as a camp counselor, and i would have the kids tap somewhere on my legs if they needed something because im a pretty tall dude. today asked my cat if he needed something.
I have woken up in a cold sweat saying âis that for here or to go?â
Every time a friend thanks me, and I respond with âgladlyâ or âmy pleasureâ, I die completely 1000% inside
I work at a plasma donation center. When processing donors, we call them by name, they walk up to the counter, and then we ask for their name and donor number. One time, instead of saying âRobertâ I hollered âName and donor number!?â into a full waiting room. Three people started announcing their names and donor numbers before we all realized that I fucked up.
In college, I was a barista at Borders (remember Borders, you guys?!) I once drove through Taco Bell on my way home after a shift. When the cashier said, âokay, thatâll be $5.46!â I cheerfully responded, âDo you have a Borders rewards card?â
I have dealt with so many difficult customers over the years that I used to angrily call my dog âSirâ when I was mad at him.
My first job was at my nearest Panera, and after coming home from a ten-hour Sunday morning shift, I was exhausted; but when my mom called me to come downstairs, instead of replying in the grumpy teenagerish tone I usually would, I said in my cheeriest, fakest voice, âNot a problem at all, let me just check with my manager!â before realizing my mistake.
my coworker went to back up the cash registers one time and she had been at customer service right before. when we finish with a customer we have to sometimes get the attention of the next person and will shout âi can get the next person in line!â but instead of saying that she yelled âHI WHAT CAN I HELP YOU WITHâ to everyone in the general area
I have told my dog âno thank youâ so many times after working at a preschool
a couple of times iâve gotten stuck in a hello how are you good how are you good how are you loop with an equally tired Fred Meyerâs cashier after a long shift but the best time was after a 10 to 10 post-holidays after they told me my total, I asked if they would like a bag today and after a confused few seconds they were like, âno⌠I have the bagsâ
Worked in a gallery where we asked people to take off their backpacks in order not to accidentally damage paintings. So when I went to the shop later and saw a guy in the line in front of me, I told him he had to remove his backpack. He probably thought I was politely trying to rob him.
i live for stories like these
i work with kids, one time i came back from a long shift and ended up (successfully) telling my dad to âStop it.â in the most commanding tone i have ever heard when he was being loud at dinner. i have never felt so mortified yet so powerful.
Iâm a cinematographer and I was sharing a room with a friend while we were shooting my last film and I woke him up yelling âI just donât understand what you want from this shotâ
I used to work as customer service at my old job, and got used to greating customers with, âHI! How can I help you?â. So one day when it was my turn to pay for my clothes, I unthinkingly told the girl at the cash register, âHI! How can I help you?â. We just ended up bursting into giggles over my blunder, with her asking in between her laughing if I worked as customer service. I sheepishly said yes
No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
This technically counts, as students are civilians, and thus considered a âprotected personâ. So yes, collective classroom punishment breaks the fourth Geneva Convention, and she should be rewarded for standing up for human rights and doing her research.
Power-move: accuse your teacher of a war crime using knowledge they supplied you with
âTeachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions.Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately âfavouringâ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as âtoo muchâ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly âmaleâ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately.â
As a teacher, I give girls what I hope is a lot of attention. I donât know if I give girls their fair share, but I aspire to, especially after noticing that boys are willing to use their greater share of teachersâ attention to get girls who they feel arenât being quiet and docile enough punished. I have therefore acquired a reputation for âcaring more about the girls.â This has had two marked results: Some straight boys have gotten more hostile toward me, and most girls have gotten more confident around me. This makes me think Iâm doing something right.
Longer thoughts on how this phenomenon relates to sexual harassment in classrooms, if youâre interested: The girls figured out I wonât report them if they hit boys who are sexually harassing them, Iâll only report the boys. This led to an increase in how often girls got the last word and boys got smacked in my classes, and, also, to a DECREASE IN HOW OFTEN GIRLS GOT SEXUALLY HARASSED. The sexual harassers seem to have been depending on the sort of âequal blameâ and âretaliation is never warrantedâ and âdonât hurt othersâ feelingsâ perspectives so many schools try to instill in kids; the sexual harassers were usually the ones bringing me into the situation by saying, âMiss, she hit me! You should write her up!â Once they figured out I was only ever going to respond, âIf you donât treat girls like that, they wonât hit you,â the girls got more confident and the sexual harassers largely shut the fuck up.
In schools, fighting against sexual harassment is often punished exactly the same as, or more severely than, sexual harassment â a lot of discipline codes make no distinction between violence and violence in self-defence, and violence is ALWAYS the highest level of disciplinary infraction, whereas verbal sexual harassment rarely is. Sexual harassers, at least in the schools Iâve been in, rely heavily on GETTING GIRLS IN TROUBLE WITH HIGHER AUTHORITIES as a strategy of harassment â creating an external punishment that penalises girls for and therefore discourages girls from fighting back. Sexual harassers are willing to use their greater share of floorspace to ask to get girls who wonât date them punished. By and large, teachers do punish those girls when they swear or hit. Schools condition girls to ignore sexual harassment by punishing them when they speak up or fight back instead.
Once the sexual harassers in my classes understood that girls wouldnât be punished for rejecting them, they backed off around me. And there started to be a flip in what conversations I get called into â girls are telling me when boys are being nasty (too loud and dominant), instead of boys telling me when girls are being uncooperative (louder and more dominant than boys think they should be).
As a girl who would not be shut up and would not tolerate teasing or abuse from boys in my class and was several times sent to such higher authorities for it, reading this is extremely, extremely vindicating. I was lucky, though, because being a particularly bright, advanced student for those grades, they generally took my side and I never got into any severe or lasting trouble. Again ,this was luck, and shouldnât be the rule.
I became a teacher, partly, because I didnât want a job where my goal was to make money. I didnât want to create profit. I want to create thinkers and voters and citizens.Â
Standardized Testing is part of a push by conservative government to make public education profitable for private corporations.Â
My state pays Pearson $90 Million EVERY YEARÂ just for STAAR testing. That doesnât include Pearson test prep materials, or any of the other tests they run.Pearson writes G/T tests, AP tests, even teacher certification tests.Â
He has been teaching about computers for six years, but without actual computers to provide for his students, he illustrates for them on a chalkboard. He learned art and graphic design in secondary school and puts it to use with every lesson, and besides Microsoft Word, he teaches his students basic components.
When asked about the âdigital divideâ he said this in the above interview:
wupacing 