I, for the most part of my secondary school education, was a massive nerd. I studied hard, I (usually) got good grades, I hung around with people that would've been labelled "unpopular" and I had very good relationships with all my teachers.
For the first half of my six years, I attended an all male Catholic school (where they failed to pray the gay away) and I had a good time. The teachers were nice, as were those in charge. I had respect for them. However, as the economic recession and its effects hit my small town right in the balls, we and another (mixed) school were forced into an amalgamation. This was fine by me, I was excited to have new students, new teachers and an entirely new gender in my schooling life for my final three years. Not to mention the building was a modern day masterpiece, even without comparison to the shithole that was its predecessor. The only problem for me however, was the man who took over as Principle. For anonymity purposes, we'll call him the Anti-Christ, although Hitler would be a close second choice! Anyway, he basically ran the school as a prison camp, enforcing strict rules and literally paraded around the place looking for reasons to scream so loud his neck veins would pop and his eyes would bulge out of his head. In the short time I knew him, I witnessed him roaring at both students and teachers alike - once reducing a wonderful teacher of mine to tears in front of our entire class because a student she had permitted to go to the bathroom had trashed it (because that's apparently her fault). I seen him refuse students entry to the building because of "breaches" in their student uniform and they were sent home instead, not allowed to go to class because their shoes "weren't black enough". I sat in class for ten minute periods as he lectured us through the intercom system on the apparently abhorrent problems and risks that ketchup sachets and Capri-Sun cartons posed to our safety (he had them banned because he slipped on one). Furthermore, he simply had no respect for the dignity of those around him - he didn't see students as people, merely animals. He didn't see teachers as his staff, merely slaves. He didn't see the place as a school, merely a corporation. It was 100% no fun - and I am a firm believer that school should be, having come from a completely different environment the year before. Anyway, for the best part of two and a half years I simply put up with it. I sat back and watched as someone I could only describe as a tyrannous cunt (I'm not bitter) ruined the lives of everyone around him. It was the beginning of my final year when classmates of mine began to wreak havoc on his concentration camp of a school. The walk outs were the most memorable for me. Basically, after our lunch break, people would just go home. They would not turn up to class. Classrooms that should have had thirty students had ten at best. The walk outs very quickly escalated to people choosing to take whole days off school, these days were more likely as the week moved closer to Friday, with classrooms empty by the time the weekend came. This was particularly chaotic because we were final years preparing for our final exams. My own act of rebellion however, is what this blog entry is about. Basically, I made a Facebook page / Burn Book about my secondary school and all those in it. For those of you unfamiliar with the film Mean Girls, a Burn Book is basically a collection of secrets and bitching that was publicized online about my school. I don't really know how the idea came to me, I think I was just bored and I was feeling particularly aggressive towards the Anti Christ for something he had done to us that week. Similarly, I don't know how I thought I'd get away with it, but at the time, it seemed like a good idea. The page was called "1,000 Things Not To Do In X" (X = Insert name of school here), and in the space of the weekend, it went viral in my town. Myself and two other students created it on the Friday evening of that long weekend, and by midday on Monday (when we deleted it due to the scale of our audience) it had over 1,500 likes. That may not seem like a lot in Internet terms, but considering the populace of my town is only about 10,000 and a fair chunk of those would be children or elderly without access to the internet, it was a lot for such a short space of time. Anyway, the page was pretty bad; taking the piss out of teachers for being pregnant every other year, or a teacher getting with a student at graduation. A lot of it however, was attacking the tendencies of the Anti Christ - mainly his ridiculously long announcements. Among those who liked the page were students, parents and even a few teachers (one of who later unliked the statuses and then badmouthed the page and everyone that had supported it by means of likes - hypocrisy is v. unattractive Miss). It had been a long weekend, so we weren't in school on the Monday and my year had a school trip on the Tuesday. I remember my whole year teasing me about it that day, as somehow they all knew it was me behind it. They all loved it; they thought it was comedic genius and asked why I had deleted. I played dumb however, aware that something bad was around the corner. When the bus dropped us back at the school at the end of the day, there were Garda (Police) cars in the car park and a friend of mine informed me - rather fearfully - that they were there for me over "The Controversial Post". The Controversial Post was what brought the page to the school's attention, because a local politician had emailed them complaining of the "pornographic content in the school" which was why the po-po were called. This photo was clearly (and that's not just me being biased) not pornographic; it was a picture of a topless man kissing a woman's neck - her face being the only part of her visible. There was nothing in the photo that you wouldn't see on a billboard for deodorant, or on daytime television for that matter! The part of the picture that caused the controversy was the man's arm pressed against the side of his torso, creating a line that was mistake for an ass crack - which even in itself is ridiculous, and hardly pornographic. The cause of the uproar was the fact that it was pictured on a computer in the school library, leading the politician to believe that porn was accessible in the school, dumb bitch. I went to school on the Wednesday and literally every one of my teachers was talking about the page. Some of them thought it was awful, some thought it was childish and some thought it was hilarious. I will never forget however, my last class of that day. My teacher - somehow knowing it was me - spent our entire class discussing it and basically inadvertently urged me to confess for my own sake. They said that if I did not confess, and then was caught, I would be expelled fo sho. So that was really not ideal. The following day, I went into school early and went straight to the Anti Christ's office. He was not there, just his side-kick Mr. Smithers (very weird lapdog relationship going on between the two of them, hence the alias). Anyway, with my mother beside me I told him what was up and his face literally dropped to the floor. He didn't say anything for a good while, then with an awkward "I'll be back momentarily" disappeared to fetch his demonic master and shit hit the fan. He went fucking psycho and screamed at both me and my mother and said I was going to be expelled. They said the terms would be discussed at a later date in front of the board of directors but I was to be suspended indefinitely (from that point on, something I didn't realize then since I was completely unfamiliar with the whole process). They said they'd be in contact and sent us on our merry way. My mum went to work and I went to class. For about three hours, nothing happened. I spoke to my friends about what happened and I told my teachers (who advised me off record, because they preferred me to the Anti Christ, how to tackle the situation) about the suspension and possible expulsion. Just before lunch time, the Anti Christ's lapdog came to fetch me. He asked why I hadn't gone home, and that I was suspended and I was like "Oh lol, you meant right away?" like an absolute fool. He took me to his office and after screaming at me more, I was told to ring my parents to collect me. Since they were both in work, neither could pick me up and the school wouldn't let me just leave (I had to be signed out), they made me sit in an empty room for the best part of three hours. In this time, they gave me the bad cop/bad cop treatment, coming in and out using scare tactics for no apparent reason. Telling me I was going to be expelled and there was nothing that could be done, telling me I wouldn't be able to sit my final exams in the school, saying I'd never get references for a job, just being a cunt basically. Honestly, I cannot express how much of a bully that man is and how relieved I am to have never set foot in that place since graduation. Anyway, this happened about two weeks into November and when I was sent home that day, I didn't know when I would be back and as a final year, this was quite worrying. We got a letter in the post a week later informing us of our board meeting. This was horrifically formal, with a court-like setup. Myself and my parents sat at a desk on the top right of the classroom and the Anti Christ and his lapdog sat on the top left. Before us, lining the other three sides of the room was a party of about thirty people (parents, teachers, clergymen and women and a handful of nuns) with an age average of about sixty. So basically, none of them really knew anything about the Interweb so I was kind of screwed. My mother had brought a blown up version of the "pornographic picture" to explain to them all that it was clearly fucking not pornographic, pointing out the fact that the only thing visible was a bare back! The board realized and acknowledged their mistake and admitted aloud that it was not pornographic. However,the Anti Christ and Smithers continued to argue that it was. The picture had been found on Google Images, but the Anti Christ continued to insist that I had taken a picture of the library computer, found a pornographic image and Photo Shopped it together (alright m8). Basically the Anti Christ continued to fight for my expulsion and as we left that evening, we were told the chances were that I would most definitely be, but we would receive confirmation in the post. To cut a long story short, I found out via post a week later that I would not be expelled due to uproar from parents and teachers in the town. Instead, I was to be suspended for two months (which is a fucking long time considering the Christmas break - which it ran into - was not included in the two months). When I eventually returned, after what turned out to be quiet a fun holiday from the shithole, having spent the majority of it studying and working through notes all my teachers sent me during my "time off", I went on to achieve results in my final exams that I was very happy with, finishing in the top ten of my year, and getting my first choice of college (university) course and I haven't looked back since! So dearest Anti Christ, if by some crazy chance you are reading this, I am getting on amazingly in life, I hear you're still terrorizing students and teachers alike and I wish you the best because one day someone is going to kick you in the balls, and the world will rejoice.
0 Comments
So basically, I worked in a supermarket for a year and although it was truly a bleak time in my life, it provided me with plenty of funny stories - the most memorable being that which ended my time there...
I had no issue with the customers, or with those I worked with - we had top notch banter over the intercom on a Sunday when there were not managers in. I enjoyed the general nature of the work and I didn't mind the hours. What drove me over the edge, was the person in charge. They were not exactly the most reasonable, and I was certainly not their biggest fan. Definitely someone taking out their childhood anger and their presumed sexual frustration on the predominantly young body of staff. As part of my college course, I had a trip away to the Gaeltacht during the first half of the Easter holidays, during the first part of a two week Spring break. The trip was mandatory. If I didn't go, I wouldn't have gotten the credits for that module and I wouldn't have gotten my degree. I had no choice. It was obligatory. I had to go! We found out about the trip about three months prior and I booked the week off of work immediately. My name was written down in the book for time off (as sacred as the bible itself) and all was well. I arranged with them to work extra shifts the following week of the break when I returned, to earn a little extra money and again, all was well. The three months flew in and before I knew it, I was on a bus trundling towards the Wild Wesht Coast of Ireland, Galway bound. On my first day in the Gaeltacht however, I received a text from a co-worker explaining that I had been rostered down to work for the entire week even though I was on the other side of the country - something the owner knew and had taken note of. I was told that I was expected to find someone to cover each of my shifts on those days that I had been scheduled to work, and that if I didn't, I wouldn't have a job to come home to. Hunreal to say the least. I am very much a stresser, so being told that if I didn't right the mistake my boss had made - from literally the middle of the countryside where I was fighting for phone signal, let alone WiFi - I would lose my job, obviously caused me mental upset. I was furious. It was not my fault that they had me down to work the dates they themselves had written me off for. I knew I would be punished if I did nothing however (they were fond of drastically slashing your hours, or giving you extremely awkward shifts if they were pissed off at you), so I sent the owner a text explaining the situation and that I was in no way at fault. I did not get a response. Soooound. When I returned from Galway, having heard nothing back apart from co-workers I was friends with telling me the owner was not a bit pleased with my actions, I was obviously pissed when I found out I had not been given any hours whatsoever for that week. I was being punished for their mistake, as usual, however I pushed forwards, despite the effects working there was having on my mental health - something others identified before I did. Me: Things are fine. [Narrator: Things were not fine.] As the weeks went on, the torment continued. They became increasingly unprofessional, and I began to get unbearably unhappy there. They were not treating me well. What pushed me over the edge however, was when I desperately needed to swap shifts with someone because they had already denied me taking the day off. I remember I needed a Saturday evening off and a friend of mine working the exact same number of hours, in the morning of the same day offered to swap shifts with me. I text one of the managers and requested we swapped shifts and the reply I received was "No". I remember sitting in a lecture hall with tears of frustration in my eyes as this made my blood boil. I ripped out a sheet of paper from my notebook and for the first time ever in that class, I wrote something down. I documented every single piece of information I could recall since working for the company; from staff mistreatment and intimidation through screaming, to health and safety hazards such as selling goods (alcohol among them) that were weeks out of date...a rat infestation, a maggot problem in the tinned food section that was brushed aside (we were told to say nothing) and everything they had done to me since the Gaeltacht situation. After the class had ended, I was interrogated by friends that had seen me from across the lecture hall who were confused as to how I was somehow getting pages upon pages of notes out of a lecturer none of us could understand. I explained to them what had happened and I read them out the list. Reading it out loud truly made me realize how much I hated the place at that stage. They expressed their sympathies for me and I went home a little bit calmer having gotten rid of so much anger through writer that stupid list. Then I got a message. My friends had - in a very "Down with the man! Down with the system!" style rebellion - began rating the business as 1/5 stars on their Facebook page. I appreciated the support and the thought that was behind the ridiculous action made me grin. At first, only about five people did this. After a few hours however, dozens had joined in and by the second day, it became almost overwhelming. I had a squad ready to burn the place to the ground through the power of social media. Yaaaaaas. That was when one of the general managers sent me a text. In short, I was told to put a stop to the actions taking place on their Facebook page. I wasn't entirely sure how they knew these people were related to me, nor did I understand why they thought I had the power to stop it, as I explained to them. I had no control over the situation and to be honest, I didn't care how it had played out for my (ex) employers. The reply I got was sassy to say the least, but I responded while maintaining composure, eager to set myself aside from the actions of my friends so no blame could be pinned on me. About three hours later, as the ratings continued to plummet, I got a text off the owner. They questioned why I had not put a stop to it, they said it was childish and "completely unwarranted" (big fat lol) and again, I was told to end it, with the use of two exclamation marks might I add!! (See, things seem so much more dramatic when they are double exclamationed). My reply was cheeky af; detailing that however childish this behavior was, I was not responsible and I could and would do nothing about it. Like the true Katniss I am, I acknowledged the fact that although their actions were sparked by my embers, the flames burnt bright on their own. Wow, such metaphor...Much analogy(can you tell I study English?). The reply I got was shocking considering it was coming from the owner of an apparently respectable local business (I'll forever challenge that statement because nobody working within the walls would back that up!). The gist of it however, was that if I cared about my job, I'd put a stop to it and if I did not stop it, I would lose said job. Safe to say, I skipped into the office the following day with my squad standing either side of me, and my letter of resignation in hand to prove how much I cared about that job. Signed. Sealed. Delivered. I'm out! I'm a celebrity, get me outta this shithole! |
meSex, drugs and none of the above... CategoriesArchives |