How often do you lose your temper

[Guest frances]

The network manager at my school regularly loses his temper and shouts at daft teachers. He has quite a short fuse. Where as I am completely the opposite. It takes a hell of a lot to make me lose my temper and I have only been made really angry once in 18 months. Dim teachers don't make angry, although teachers who totally basic lack manners do.

 

Where do you think the balance lies between being patient and not allowing dim teachers to take the p***?

Edited March 20, 2010 by witch

[webman]

Never lost my temper with anyone at work. There have been a couple of occasions when my frustration with the situation has shown a tiny bit in the tone of my voice, but that is all.

[yabbadabba]

As a break off I use "I have another job that is very urgent that has been reported on the Helpdesk, I will get back to this as soon as I can and will notify you of its progress and if you can log it onto the helpdesk that would be great....followed by a cheesey smile and a nod of the head" then I wander off before any one has chance to answer.

 

That way it gets me out of a stressful situation if needed and I can come back to the problem when said Teacher has moved on letting me get the job done a lot quicker.

[torledo]

The network manager at my school regularly loses his temper and shouts at daft teachers. He has quite a short fuse. Where as I am completely the opposite. It takes a hell of a lot to make me lose my temper and I have only been made really angry once in 18 months. Dim teachers don't make angry, although teachers who totally basic lack manners do.

 

Where do you think the balance lies between being patient and not allowing dim teachers to take the p***?

 

He shouts at teachers ?! I like this guy already.

Edited March 20, 2010 by witch

[maniac]

I make a point of not loosing my temper at work. I'm employed as a professional and thus display a professional manner at all times. (How Cliché does that answer sound) If something gets on my nerves, I will normally walk away calmly from the situation then come back a little later and talk to the person involved and explain why whatever situation it was annoyed me and the reasons why.

 

The worst time I had to bite my lip was when the head of IT at a previous school started laying into me about how poor the system was in front of a class of year 11 students. I'm sure he was just trying to provoke a reaction, but he didn't get it and ended up having to apologise about the whole incident after the headteacher got to hear about it. Loosing your temper just gets you no where, and In My Opinion if you are inclined to do so, then you're really in the wrong job!

 

Mike.

[torledo]

"I have another job that is very urgent that has been reported on the Helpdesk, I will get back to this as soon as I can and will notify you of its progress and if you can log it onto the helpdesk that would be great....followed by a cheesey smile and a nod of the head"

 

why don't you just shout at them..

[yabbadabba]

Well we all have bad days, I can understand why teachers get upset sometimes when in front of a class of 30 pupils the lesson starts to go horribly wrong because of an IT fault.

 

But....the fact they get upset and dont have a backup plan is unprofessional, me acting in a equally unprofessional manner would not resolve the issue or be a good example for the pupils or any one who enters the room while the argument/heated discussion is taking place.

 

In the past I have had to take far more abuse from corporate customers than a teacher could ever be capable of, that helps alot

[elsiegee40]

I do my very best not to... but occasionally, I fear it must be obvious that I'm starting to feel a little irritated. I'm only human, fortunately that are sympathetic EduGeek ears when it gets too much!

[localzuk]

I've only got angry once or twice in the last couple of years - and those were during extreme stress situations (ie. servers being down, and me trying to get them back up). On only one of those occasions did I actually snap at someone though - and i promptly apologised once I had solved the issue.

 

If a teacher laid into me in front of a class, i'd request they come outside and talk to me, if they don't, i'd just leave and inform the head of their behaviour. One of the golden rules in education is that our behaviour is reflected in the behaviour of the kids. If we behave like stroppy kids, then the kids will act like stroppy kids. Poor behaviour isn't tolerated in anyone.

[HodgeHi]

I get irritated quite easily at the moment. I try not to let it show but sometimes i can't keep it in. The thing that is annoying me sooo much at the moment is the fact that the amount of work i have put into getting the systems up and running and the services i have put into place just don't get used. For example, i have started the wiki service and added content to help them with their day to day ICT (training is an issue and i am aware of it and trying to amend this) and what do i get? We need training. Yes. have you read the items/content on the wiki? Oh, i ain't got time to read that. I just want you to tell me how to do it. What they really mean is that they want me to do it for them. This annoys me as i am trying to pull out all the stops but they seem intent on doing very little to change the fact that they know very little and willing to keep it that way. As soon as the training sessions are active, i bet no one comes. And that's what it is like and that's what drives me nuts! Why do i bother? But what really makes me fly off is when they ask a question and the answer is there to read and available.

 

Sorry. Rant over.

[FN-GM]

I normally have a little rant to myself

[chrbb]

I try to walk away with a comment that the matter will be resolved, usually with a tone in my voice that shows I'm cheesed off but am leaving the situation to either resolve it or to defuse the situation. If a teacher has something daft or not plugged it in I never say as such in front of their class, just a comment "it's all OK now"

 

I walked away from a conversation the other day where I felt unjust comments were being made re something I'd worked very hard on with the statement "thats fine blame me it's bound to be my fault" (childish I know but end of tether had been reached.

 

Person that had said comments followed me gushing apologies - so very politely I said "just leave it, it's fine I'll be back in 5 minutes when I've done something else (in otherwards when I've stopped seething) Returned to room 5 minutes later to find person in floods of tears surrounded by fellow staff comforting her and looking daggers at me.

 

I get the feeling we are expected to soak up comments, sort out human errors and have no feelings of our own!

[MkII]

The worst time I had to bite my lip was when the head of IT at a previous school started laying into me about how poor the system was in front of a class of year 11 students.

That's atrocious behavior. I hope he was made to apologise to you in front of those students too.

 

I've never raised my voice to a teacher/ client. If I get stressed I start swearing a lot to myself. Well I've shouted across a classroom to a kid for using the DVD Drive as a paper holder - and the teacher, a good friend, went very red as she'd been teaching all her classes to do that! LOL

 

It's a Victorian attitude to shout at people. "a sign of a public school education" as one of the teachers at my school says

 

Modern educational methods are all about positive reinforcement and encouragement. Modern parenting too.

[Andrew_C]

Modern educational methods are all about positive reinforcement and encouragement. Modern parenting too.

And look where it has got us...

 

I'm not cool headed; this is why I work with machines and not people. It makes me feel better to shout at something that isn't working, and if that thing is flesh & blood they take offence.

 

Shouted at pupil last week. Teacher in has no control of class, I was half watching what was going on using Ranger Remote. Kid playing game at start of lesson, so I closed it for him, just so he could see the Spanish he should have been doing. About 10 mins from the end of the lesson, HoD comes in and asks whats going on in lab as it is fairly noisy. Go back to Ranger and blasted kid is at it again. Teacher wouldn't do anything, so I called kid out and asked, loudly, if he thought that his parents were spending £25k a year for him to play games etc. Very quite in the lab for the rest of the lesson!

 

Works well if done sparingly.

[witch]

I try very hard not to get cross but as others have said, I think it shows in my tone of voice occasionally. I tend to leave the situation and go back to my IT room, check there is nobody around and then get angry. I did have a situation last week where I felt I was being blamed for something not my fault and although I didn't say anything to those involved and was fine, back in my own place I tripped over the phone cable and really let rip . My boss was in the room and he disappeared and when he came back I realised he had sorted the issue I was cross about - which was lovely.

The main problem I have is that people don't face me with their problems, I hear about it in a roundabout way which leaves me no chance to approach the person concerned and discuss the issues calmly.

I do like the 'I'm busy with an emergency - write it down and I will get to it ASAP' approach.

Bad manners and a lot of shouting are not something I respond to and I agree that the former at least should not be shown in front of children.

[EduTech]

I dont loose my temper at all at work, in front of them sometimes i just tell them to put it on the helpdesk. but tbh if they do really wind me up i just go back to the office and have a rant to myself and sometimes with the company of the NM which is great fun and much more releaving

 

James.

[Sirbendy]

rarely with kids, infrequently with staff.

 

I had to go into a room and bawl out a class of year 11 who'd reduced a cover teacher to a wreck and who'd then left them unsupervised. It's so rare that I give my voice full reign that they all stopped dead, and were ever so good for the remaining 30 minutes while I sat in the room and filled in.

 

Staff though..gah. They run in and shout at you while you're on the phone..that upsets me. They can't control the kids and leave the office door open so we get swamped..that annoys me..and they can't plan for toffee, and that REALLY annoys me. I still rarely shout..but they get the message.

 

I've only ever gone bursar at ONE staff member, which was when she let a kid on the system as her, and we caught her out because he was playing games and surfing for inappropriate material..she was justifying her actions, refused to acknowledge any fault, "you shouldn't block them then"..etc

 

I explained the filtering needs, the security reasons, the reason everyone has an account, differentiated filtering etc..she still argued. So I got up, locked the door, and I just let rip, including calling the LEA and throwing her the phone so she could justify to them.

 

NM had to hold me back and have her removed in hysterics. I got a written complaint about it, and tore it up in front of her. With my HODs backing.

[localzuk]

I get irritated quite easily at the moment. I try not to let it show but sometimes i can't keep it in. The thing that is annoying me sooo much at the moment is the fact that the amount of work i have put into getting the systems up and running and the services i have put into place just don't get used. For example, i have started the wiki service and added content to help them with their day to day ICT (training is an issue and i am aware of it and trying to amend this) and what do i get? We need training. Yes. have you read the items/content on the wiki? Oh, i ain't got time to read that. I just want you to tell me how to do it. What they really mean is that they want me to do it for them. This annoys me as i am trying to pull out all the stops but they seem intent on doing very little to change the fact that they know very little and willing to keep it that way. As soon as the training sessions are active, i bet no one comes. And that's what it is like and that's what drives me nuts! Why do i bother? But what really makes me fly off is when they ask a question and the answer is there to read and available.

 

I have had similar issues with help files. I'm building up a collection of them now. I did have it set as a publicly accessible knowledgebase but no-one went to it. So I've switched to RT with RTFM and now if someone has an issue, i can select the pre-made RTFM articles for them to read and send it to them as an email.

 

The excuse 'I don't have time to read X' is such a useless excuse though, as waiting the time it takes for me to get round to going and doing it for them is usually a more time consuming thing to do!

[chrbb]

The main problem I have is that people don't face me with their problems, I hear about it in a roundabout way which leaves me no chance to approach the person concerned and discuss the issues calmly.

 

I get this as well, I go linedancing() with a Teaching assistant and one from my other school is a fellow pub regular - invariably I'm told "Don't know what went wrong with the printers after you left no-one could print at all this afternoon" or "all lower school wanted to watch dvd's on their smartboards none of them worked" When i next go to the school I find someone had turned the printer off at the mains and no one had the gumption to check, or that only one class couldn't watch a dvd because their teacher didn't follow the written instructions from me on what to do when you want to watch a dvd!

But between the time of being told and checking yourself you feel like total waste of space who may as well pack up the day job and get a job stacking shelves.

[Andrew_C]

Readers of this thread may also be interested in this years winner of the Ig Nobel prize for Literature; "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations," Edited October 19, 2008 by Andrew_C
Link To Ig Nobel added

[Pete10141748]

I've only got a bit mad at someone once, and that was Friday last week.

The teacher sent some pupils to get a few laptops, as I was in the middle of re-imaging them I gave them the only few I had that were not already in the process, but told them that if they do not work, we didn't have any more to give them.

 

Now, staff know that the laptops are over 3 years old, wireless cards are dodgy, the batteries dont hold a charge and the logons are slow - hence why no-one uses them anymore.

 

So, 10 minutes later some different pupils from her class come in - only 1 of the laptops work out of the 5, can they have more? I said No, I told them before we dont have any more.

 

5 minutes later, a different set of kids again comes in, "can we have some laptops please?" So again, I said, No, and tell Mrs. X that we DO NOT HAVE ANY MORE to give her.

 

5 minutes after that, Mrs. X comes in demanding a supply teacher laptop to give to her kids. I tell her we can't do that, as they are set up for as a single-logon machine with TEACHER's security, permissions, Internet Filtering, mapped drives etc

 

So then she starts having a go, "well I'm going to use the laptop with them, I'll make sure they dont look at stuff" and so forth, so I said again (by this time in a more forceful tone) I CANT give you a TEACHER laptop for PUPILs to use!

 

this went on for a few minutes, back and forth, and only ended when I said something like "I CANT GIVE YOU A SUPPLY LAPTOP, WE HAVE NO PUPILS ONES AS I'M TRYING TO FIX THEM AT THIS VERY MOMENT, and you know, everyone knows these laptops are crap, I tell you (staff) every time someone asks for them, so WHY do you people still try to use them?"

 

she then goes on to demand use of the ICT Suite instead, as "not having the Internet has ruined all my planning this week", which is the very quote I am going to present the Head with when I get called in about this (such as why was all her planning based on the Internet, why were there no backup plans etc), which I have a feeling I will as Mrs. X is a moany old so-and-so who won't let this go, I know it

 

I point out that the Internet being down at the start of the week WAS NOT MY FAULT, just like it NEVER IS, it's our ISP, we have complained over and over, recommended that we switch, the Head ignores us etc etc

 

By happy coincidence the ICT Suite was free for the rest of the morning, so (i presume) she went over there.

 

 

Why she didn't check and do that in the first place is beyond me

[maniac]

That's atrocious behavior. I hope he was made to apologise to you in front of those students too.

 

He wasn't unfortunitely, but his reputation in the school took a severe knocking because of the incident, and I think the students knew, they always do! Him apologising was good enough, we all make errors of judgement, afterall we are only human. After the incident things changed a lot, he had much more respect for us and we actually worked quite well together to solve the problems we were having, so much so that when I left he actually wrote me a letter thanking me for my support for the previous 2 years.

 

Mike.

[witch]

I sometimes think that me, elsiegee and chrbb are actually the same person living in parallel universes - just about everything you both say applies to me too!

And localzuk - love the pic - so nice to have something pleasant to look at!

[Guest frances]

Reading some of the posts makes me realise that the most of the teachers aren't so bad afterall. The only teacher I lost my temper with was a music teacher who seemed to think it was my job to plan her assembly. The school at is tiny as its a special school and they have a singing assemly once a week. This teacher wanted me to select suitable kareoke pop songs. She can take a running jump if she thinks I am going to vet lyrics of pop songs for naughty words for her.

 

Still I got loads pregnancy hormones, which probably explains the only occassion I have lost my temper.

 

I have never even come close to losing my temper with kids. Most the kids at the school I work at are nice children, they just have major learning difficulties. Infact I think they are far nicer than most mainstream kids. However there are times that I think the kids are brighter than the teachers.

Edited October 19, 2008 by frances

[chrbb]

Still I got loads pregnancy hormones, which probably explains the only occassion I have lost my temper.

 

A couple of our teachers are pregnant and I had such a muddled conversation with one of them where neither of us could get what the other was saying, that we put it down to pregnancy hormones meeting middle age hormones and creating some sort of invisible langauge barrier:D