Sunday, February 28, 2010
Mr. Somebody Needs A Slap
Our school district has the organizational skills of a dead squid.
Most send home information about school sports, and tell us important things like when practice starts, where it's held, if equipment is needed, and if a physical is needed.
Not our school district. Instead, they have a fancy-schmancy, new electronic dialer system that calls us at 3:00am with a recorded message anytime there's a school closing. Or it calls during dinner to tell us there's a bake sale on Friday.
Sports tryouts? PTA meetings? Nope. Nada. Nothing.
Instead, we rely on the teenager grapevine approach:
“Mooooom!” whines the teenager living in our household, “I need to get a physical by next week so I can play soccer.”
“I thought you were going to get all the information first, so we could talk about it,” I reminded her.
“But I just found out tryouts are next week!”
“Okay. So what time is soccer practice over?” I asked.
“I don't know,” says child.
“Is there a sports bus that takes the kids home afterwards?”
“I don't know.”
“Who is the coach? I'll just call him.”
“I don't know.”
“How do you know tryouts are next week?”
“My friends told me.”
“Who told them?”
“Somebody.”
“Okay, so Mr. Somebody came to them in a vision and told them of the impending tryouts? Really? You're not seriously telling me that no one knows when and where practice is, who the coach is, and how long it will be?”
Teenager stomps off.
Until recently, I had a very flexible work schedule. During that time, I encouraged my daughter to do sports or other extra curricular activity. She couldn't have been bothered.
Now that I have ZERO job flexibility, and work an hour away, playing school soccer has become a moral imperative.
So.
To sum up: My job stinks like an old gym sock, and now I've got a pissed off teenager too.
I really need to play the lottery more often.
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2 comments:
Jen, you know better than to expect communication from anybody between the ages of 1 and 25, especially if they have a hold over you, like..being your children.
I find pleading with mine is demeaning, but they reduce me to it sometimes. However, of late it has been pay-back time. For the first time in his life, my son has had to buy his own plane tickets. Over here, you get them cheaper, the sooner you book them. When they fly up to see me, I am always on the phone trying to get them to make their minds up about when they want to come, knowing that every day they delay, the price goes up.
So I get, "Oh dad, I'll let you know in a day or two", and meanwhile the price of the ticket jumps £20.
This week my son tried to book a flight of his own, dithered for two days, and was outraged that the price had gone up.
They will learn. Eventually.
I've also noticed between 1 and 25 there's no concept of action and consequence. I don't know, maybe I was the same way back then and I've just forgotten.
I certainly hope your son gets himself booked on a flight soon. You are completely correct, they eventually learn - it just might be the hard way :)
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