As if I didn’t have enough to do teaching classes every day, and giving the kindergarten teacher and other teachers their lunch breaks, and performing office duties like taking a head count in the mornings, substituting for a sick teacher, answering the phones, answering the door, filling out endless reports, scheduling teachers, watching the head count in the afternoons and sending teachers home as soon as possible, fixing office equipment, etc., etc., etc., now Cate has decided that I should take over Marjorie’s duties while she is on a six- to eight-week leave of absence to have surgery. I’ve worked at the school only about a month, and now they’re heaping this on me, too. I’m surprised they even trust me with it, but I guess I’m the lesser of two evils, the other evil being to find a person from outside the school to come in temporarily to handle the money.
Of course, I am the logical person to do this. I have to agree. I have a Master’s degree in Business Administration and have performed Marjorie’s duties in previous jobs I’ve held, collecting payments and recording and depositing them, keeping the financial records, sending out billing statements. It’s all very familiar to me, and I actually like this kind of work. I’m also hoping that since I’m generously sitting in for Marjorie, which reassures her of still having a job when she gets back and keeps the upper management from having to hire (and more importantly pay) someone else from outside the school, that they will lessen some of my other duties. They can’t possibly expect me to do Marjorie’s job and mine, two full-time jobs, at the same time, right? Wrong.
Marjorie has been teaching me the financial part of the school’s computer system. I’m not actually allowed to work on it yet. Marjorie doesn’t want me using her password. I guess she doesn’t want to be blamed if I make a mistake. I can understand that, but I’m not an idiot.
Hopefully, I will be given a password of my own soon that will give me access to the financial reports. My current password only allows me into the director’s functions of reporting staffing and head counts. I don’t even have e-mail. God forbid we should actually communicate with each other! There is also no internet connection. We’re not allowed to have it. Apparently, we can’t be trusted.
I am taking copious notes as Marjorie shows me around the computer software. It’s very logical, not terribly complicated, and if I have notes, I’ll easily remember what to do. Marjorie keeps treating this as if it were rocket science. It’s not that hard. I know why she feels she has to keep her job shrouded in mystery, though. She needs the job security. We’re all made to feel early on in our employment here that we are completely expendable. We can easily be replaced tomorrow. If she makes her job seem complicated, she feels fewer people can step in to replace her. However, I’m getting irritated at being treated as if I’m an imbecile incapable of competently taking over her duties. I’m surprised she hasn’t made me sign in blood never to reveal any of the top secret mysteries she is about to share with me. Maybe if she tells me her secrets, she’ll have to kill me later like a good top operative in the espionage business would.