What would be more stressful? Working in HR or as a teacher?

It is easy to understand why they do things wrong. So, being a teacher, I teach them. Some of my most repeated lines were, "Yes, I get it. I have no problem with what you said, but we're both men.

  Hr Classes   Apr 17, 2024   0   26  Add to Reading List

I loved teaching. I never found it stressful. As president of the teachers' association, I did much of the work of an HR director. At first I worked with the Assistant Superintendent of Personnel, later with an (aweful) h.r. director who didn't last long. For me, H.R is much more stressful.

As a teacher you can say to students, "Knock it off; that isn't right. Don't do that!" You can say that because some students (all of mine) had been alive for fewer years than I had been teaching. It is easy to understand why they do things wrong. So, being a teacher, I teach them. Some of my most repeated lines were, "Yes, I get it. I have no problem with what you said, but we're both men. You are not going to get any grief from your p.e. teacher either, but you just cannot say that in a classroom and especially not in front of Miss Jamsom. You know better than that. It's like talking to your dad and talking to your mom. Right?" Or "Yea, I know. Here's the straight dope on that. Ninety-nine point 99 per cent of what the guys tell you in the locker room is lying. They call it bragging, but whatever they call it; it isn't true!"

If worse come to worst you can tell a student, "If you keep that up somebody is going to kick your butt up between your shoulders!"

Now in h.r. you deal with adults. In schools you deal with adults all of whom have at least one degree. How to you tell an educated adult about the appropriate language? What do you tell an experienced adult who believes some outlandish story? One expects such adults to be rational if not reasonable. Both the superintendent and I would ask, time and time again, "What do you want us to do? Seriously. What do you want to happen? How can we make this better for you? "

stress: No response! None. No help. Employee unhappy, sometimes screaming angry. Both the district and the Association is willing to help. All we need to know is what would make the employee happy. Is he going to tell us? Hell, no!

Sometimes a student may be at a loss of what he really wants. That is fine. A student is a youngster. We know how to help guide him to a solution. An adult is an adult.

A true example. A principal thoughtlessly interrupted a teacher's presentation. Usually teachers don't much care. We are interrupted often. In this case the teacher was angry. The principal apologized. When the teacher complained in writing, the principal apologized in writing. When the teacher demanded a meeting with the personnel superintendent, I talked to him first. There was no contract violation, so I told him that we couldn't file a grievance, but that if he would tell me what he wanted to happen, I would try to help settle this. He then repeated telling me what happened, more than once. I gave the super a heads up. Perhaps he could get the teacher to tell us what he wanted. I couldn't. He couldn't either. We spent an hour listening to the complaint time and again, but we could not get a soultion demanded. (Short of a time machine to redo the three minutes of the interrupted class, but neither the district nor the association had one of those.)