The Barnes and Noble Sale

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All I know is that the high-end, open air shopping center that opened over a year ago about a half-mile from my house was supposed to have a Barnes and Noble. The space was there, finished, clearly a B&N type architecture, but the opening was put off several times, and recently they put up big "For Lease" signs in the windows. I was bummed, because I had considered applying for part-time work there.

Ann

It doesn't from my perspective.

Ann, my friend retired from teaching high school and thought B&N would be a good place to work. She found herself unloading trucks of books and being treated very poorly by younger supervisors. There was a lot of pressure and it had nothing to do with helping patrons find books, the least of her chores. Mostly she dusted shelves, moved heavy boxes of books, stood forever at the cash register, etc. Finally, she gave it up. She said even counting college jobs, it was the worst place she had ever worked: poorly managed, cheap labor, and young staffers who were actually mean to her.

I have a similar attitude toward the national tutoring corporation I recently decided to walk away from.

My 2 (actually 3) weeks notice will be up this Wednesday. I have been put on the schedule for tomorrow at least. We never get more than 24 hours notice re our schedules, except for Monday, which we learn about on Saturday. I am scheduled for 2 hours tomorrow.

Last Wednesday, I noticed several things which made me feel I had made the right decision. The first involved the "Teacher of the Quarter" award winner. (I personally received this award several times under the old directors - never under the current ones). One of the perks has always been a $30. gift Visa card. This quarter began the first of August. Last Wed. the "honored teacher" was handed three ten dollar bills and an apology for being late. One teacher pointed out that she had been dropped for the schedule for her 2nd hour (Teachers are not expected to come in for one hour only. We are to be assigned a minimum of two hours if we are asked to come in, and paid for two hours regardless.) When the teacher pointed out the situation to the Director responsible for scheduling, she replied with a vacant, "Oh? I'm sorry." The teacher was dismissed with only one hour's pay.

The current directorship is very disdaining of retired teachers. They prefer young ones who have just been certified, the less experience the better. During this past season, the younger teachers have been given the task of teaching the SAT classes. The young math teacher, though, quit at the end of the summer, so the older, retired math teacher was given the job. A young reading/writing teacher, with mostly middle-school experience, was given the SAT Verbal students. In the past, these kids were assigned to me. For some reason, last Wed, I had nothing but SAT kids. My instructions with one of them included going over his exit practice test scores. He was very disappointed to learn that, while his math scores had improved considerably, his verbal scores had dropped or remained the same. On one level, I felt vindicated for myself and the older math teacher, but on another, I felt sick. At any rate, I know I did the right thing.

Ann

Profit-making "non-profits" absolutely do not care about the students as people; it is the numbers. The only reason the student improvement matters is to show it in the numbers, whatever it takes, at the lowest possible cost. The less to the teachers, the more to the upper echelon.

Public education does have parents and school boards forcing attention to the students; however, they hang onto people who do just about nothing and put the extra loads on the eager beavers. They, too, want cheaper teachers because their budgets are hurting. They too need the performance stats; however, it takes a school practically dying before poor performance makes any difference in the school staffing or education delivery.

The workplace is no longer a pleasure anywhere. Those television sitcoms of happy workplaces are fantasy. The stress of hanging onto jobs, looking over shoulders for pink slips and the horrid economy has everyone on edge. Corporations making huge profits are using the "economy" to cut staff as though they, too, were struggling, to make even more profit, with layoffs in spite of high production and profits. Co-workers are losing their homes; adult children are returning home; the stress on families bleeds into the workplace.

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I remember a Star Trek episode where the library was holographic. The potential books had images to review, no actual pages to touch. How close are we to that, I wonder.