Doddie Duty?

You may not know, remember or especially care, but teachers get stuck doing a lot of "extra jobs" that to varying degrees fall outside the otherwise glamourous act of imparting knowledge.

These duties are "floating" so no one gets stuck with the same thing for more than a few weeks at a time. Although, as a substitute teacher I've noticed that regular teachers seem to get "sick," or "called away" more often when they are assigned to a particularly sucky duty.

For instance, today I substitute taught for a high school English teacher who had 3rd hour "restroom supervision." Scary? Yeah! But ever the optimist (ha!) I figured I might be able pick up some extra cash handing out towels while I was at it. Turns out a restroom supervisor doesn't actually spend much time inside any given restroom, but instead wanders around the school checking all the restrooms (according to gender) for signs of graffiti, vandalism or "excessive use of supplies." I'm not sure exactly what that last one means, but I figure I'll know it when I see it.

Today, the teacher that checked the restrooms before me noted that there was a "penis on the wall" in the bathroom on the first floor. When I got there 3rd hour I saw that there was indeed, "a penis on the wall!" It was drawn in blue ink, but by that time a pink heart had also been drawn nearby.

I know they like to get rid of graffiti ASAP and I had a radio with me, so I guess I could have reported it right then and there. However, since I know my cell phone reception is dicy inside the cement block walls of this particular school, I thought attempting to broadcast a message along the lines of: "the penis wall now has a heart on it," might not be a good idea.

Maybe the handheld radio reception inside the school is top-notch, but think about it, if a few words dropped out of that message, it would almost certainly create more questions than it answered.