Let Out and Let Off
Whenever I'm in charge of any teaching session, I always begin by outlining the session and then I say what time it will finish.
Then I tell the learners - whatever age they are - that if the finish time is, say, four-thirty, then that is the time that we will finish.
The reason for this is that I know what I'm like and I expect everyone else to be the same. If the class, or meeting, is supposed to finish at four-thirty, then at four thirty-one I stop listening, no matter how interesting it may be. Something in my head presses the OFF switch and I'm out of there, at least mentally. I'm in the car. I'm on the way home. I'm having tea. I've left.
Sometimes I do actually leave. If a meeting has run over and just descended into general waffle, as they tend to, I have hit on a method of getting out of there. I stand up, quietly gather my things together, look the person in charge in the eye and say in tones of great seriousness, "I'm really sorry, but I have to go now." I don't give a reason because any reason sounds false, especially if the real reason is "because I can't stand it another minute".
So if I'm running a session that's supposed to finish at half past, I finish by twenty-eight minutes past at the latest. Daphne's Rule of Being In a Class or a Meeting is this: if you are told you are to finish at four-thirty and then finish at quarter to five (just in time to get nicely caught in the rush-hour traffic) then you go out frazzled and furious. If, however, you finish even a couple of minutes early - even if the class is interesting! - you feel a tinge of guilty pleasure and you leave feeling you've somehow been Let Off.
I love my work - but even so, I know I react in exactly this way. A job that I was due to do next week - a job that I was looking forward to, that I enjoyed very much last time - has been cancelled. But because it's been cancelled at short notice, I'm still getting paid. Woohoo! I feel like I've won the lottery. My inner eight-year-old is still alive and well and rushing out of school early to get to the playground before it's teatime.
Then I tell the learners - whatever age they are - that if the finish time is, say, four-thirty, then that is the time that we will finish.
The reason for this is that I know what I'm like and I expect everyone else to be the same. If the class, or meeting, is supposed to finish at four-thirty, then at four thirty-one I stop listening, no matter how interesting it may be. Something in my head presses the OFF switch and I'm out of there, at least mentally. I'm in the car. I'm on the way home. I'm having tea. I've left.
Sometimes I do actually leave. If a meeting has run over and just descended into general waffle, as they tend to, I have hit on a method of getting out of there. I stand up, quietly gather my things together, look the person in charge in the eye and say in tones of great seriousness, "I'm really sorry, but I have to go now." I don't give a reason because any reason sounds false, especially if the real reason is "because I can't stand it another minute".
So if I'm running a session that's supposed to finish at half past, I finish by twenty-eight minutes past at the latest. Daphne's Rule of Being In a Class or a Meeting is this: if you are told you are to finish at four-thirty and then finish at quarter to five (just in time to get nicely caught in the rush-hour traffic) then you go out frazzled and furious. If, however, you finish even a couple of minutes early - even if the class is interesting! - you feel a tinge of guilty pleasure and you leave feeling you've somehow been Let Off.
I love my work - but even so, I know I react in exactly this way. A job that I was due to do next week - a job that I was looking forward to, that I enjoyed very much last time - has been cancelled. But because it's been cancelled at short notice, I'm still getting paid. Woohoo! I feel like I've won the lottery. My inner eight-year-old is still alive and well and rushing out of school early to get to the playground before it's teatime.
posted by Daphne at 6:31 pm
1 Comments:
A job, meeting or anything else over running makes me feel resentful.
Being let off a job, even one that I might have enjoyed, and still being paid for it feels fantastic.
Being let out early from a job just makes me feel guilty. Not a guilty pleasure, just guilt. Today a job that was booked to take ten hours took less than half that time. Oh, the guilt!
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