Training

So, I have attended 2 of my 6 days of director training. I am in process of getting my director credentials to soon become a preschool director. The training is all the way out in Ft. Worth, and my husband and I are currently sharing a car. FUN! Actually, it's not so bad. He has to be at work at 7 am, so I go directly from there and get there just in time.

First of all, Ft. Worth drivers are NOT friendly! I get the privilege of driving on, like, 5 different highways, usually at rush hour. People are weaving in and out of lanes (which is normal). Not too many people use their signal to let you know they plan to cut you off. Pet peeve #1. How hard is it to push down a little stick, RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR HAND? Anyway...so I'm nice and let people in, because it's not like I'm going anywhere far at the moment. Pet peeve #2: Ft. Worth people don't wave thanks when you let them in. Dallas (most), Richardson and Plano drivers, in my experience, wave when you let them in. It's just nice, you know. Not in Ft. Worth. It is their right get in your lane, and you are supposed to let them in.

Ok, moving on. So in this director training, there's a lot of other directors or directors-in-training. OMG!!!! The stories and questions that these people have! I'm really curious what their school is like. One girl's boss is taking complete advantage of her. She's an assistant director and is on salary, which is typically an hourly job. She works 6am to 6pm regularly and does not get paid overtime! She's working 60 hours a week and getting paid zilch! Like that's not enough, this girl is having to use her own vacation time to pay for the fact that she's not at work, she's at training. She was completely unaware that her job is supposed to pay her salary when she's at training during the week. I told her she needs to call the workforce commission and ask a whole bunch of questions. Another guy was talking about his school, which he's owner of. We're in a discussion about the Americans With Disabilities Act, and he's talking about how he told a lady he wouldn't enroll her 11 year old child into the program because the kid wears diapers and he thought it was gross and didn't want to deal with it. Yea, I'd think the same thing, but you don't TELL the parent that! She got all upset, rightfully so, and threatened to sue. Another was asking if you can make it policy for parents to tell you if their child has HIV. Well, if you knew a child had HIV before they were enrolled, would you enroll them? Probably not, which is discrimination. She totally didn't get that.

"What if a parent comes in drunk? I still have to release the child to them because it's the parent, right?"

"What if the mother says the father is not involved and we have no info on him, but then he all of a sudden comes to the school and wants to pick up. Do we release the child to him?" "Is the father on the release form?" "No." "Then no." "But he's the father." "How do you know he's the father if you have no info?"

There's just so much information! And stupid questions. And I fear that taking this position will make me lose friends. I'll be their boss. I'll become the one they talk about. I'll be making changes and it will piss them off because they won't understand why, or they've become so used to getting things a certain way. I really hope not. I hope that it will be like before when I was in charge. I was complemented on my job performance. Everyone was happy with me and how I did things. Even after I left the position, people still complemented me. It's nice! (Sigh)......maybe things will be like that....

4 more days of training...