As a team-building exercise this year, we all got little buckets. Little tin buckets with our names on them. The rest of the staff got an explanation and a bunch of large drop-shaped papers and they knew what the little buckets were for. We, in the office, have made our official "team" motto: "Last to know, first to get blamed." So, we had the little buckets and no idea why. I had nicknamed them "little buckets o' blame" for the fact that we really do get blamed for everything, whether we had anything to do with the problem or not.
When I arrived today, however, I had a little drop paper in my bucket that had a nice thing on it. Something about my greeting this anonymous person with a smile every day. (If I'm grumpy some day, will that drop evaporate????) Then, later, one of my APs put another drop in the bucket. Apparently, the buckets are supposed to be places where you can give each other kudos. Some day, when I have nothing to do, I'll think of something nice someone has done and give them a drop. If I can find their bucket. Which will be in their locked classroom unless they are in said classroom, which will make the drop not a surprise.
Okay, there's a fire drill tomorrow. Our first of the year. We must have one per week for the first four weeks, then one a month for the rest of the year. It is a wonder we get anything else done. I'm generally in charge of the grunt work for the fire drills and tomorrow we'll see how many mistakes I've made updating the lists and procedures. We have a crazy-huge population for an elementary school, so seldom do these things go off without some sort of fire faux pas. You must call one phone number ten minutes before the drill, then another number when the fire drill is pulled and get outside. Sometimes someone decides they have too much work and they are just going to stay indoors. Sometimes the fire department comes anyway and they inspect the building. If they find someone inside, the fire drill doesn't count and we have to do it all over again. So much planning takes place prior to the drill! It can't be a day when we have visitors (groups) or when we are testing. It needs to be while groups are in classes and not in the halls. The weather needs to be just right. It needs to be before lunches begin (10:50 a.m.) or after they end (1:40) and not between 1 and 2, when the Head Start kids are napping. It also can't be after 10:30 a.m. since that is when the cafeteria staff eats their "lunch." Mondays are out entirely since our student's day ends at 12:45 on Mondays. What a pain. When I'm queen, I'm just gonna walk out in the hall and pull the lever. Done. That is how fires happen, anyway.
We did have a fire once. Or twice. One time was just as our renovations were being completed and an electrical closet caught fire. It was a week before school was to begin, though, so it didn't count. :-| The second one was odd. In the office, we smelled smoke and couldn't decide where it was coming from. Finally, the Principal decided to just call 911 and pull the fire alarm to evacuate the building. The FD arrived and we told them about the smell. They went into the office with a weird-looking gun and pointed it around the room. A few minutes later, we returned to the office and I noticed that my computer monitor was being taken away. It had been on fire! They showed me what it looked like through the weird gun. Yikes. I coulda burned up!
Wish us luck with the Fire Drill. Oh, yeah. We are really wild at HW!
2 comments:
Aww, the little drop buckets are cute! That kind of reminds me of the exercise we did in 5th grade, when we all passed around papers with our names on them and people wrote compliments on them. Remember the one guy who wrote I was "All That and a Bag of Chips?" That was cool. I think I still have it somewhere.
Good luck on the fire drills! It sounds insanely confusing. We haven't had any yet, but I've heard fire drills for each dorm pretty much happen whenever someone burns popcorn, or a random person leans up against the alarm wrong or pulls it on purpose... and no matter the time of day or night, we have to leave. Apparently the people in the top floor of the tower have to WALK down all TWELVE floors of stairs. I feel so sorry for them! At least I'm only on the fourth floor, which is really only the third floor. (Trying to figure that one out still.)
Wow, that was a long comment. Love you!
glee -
The buckets do sound like a good idea, but would have been nicer with a note explaining the concept so everyone would know what to do. Do you have tornado drills along with your fire drills (not at the same time)? I remember being in the office talking to a admin. assistant one time, and the tornado alarm went off. We all had to go into the girl's restroom that was inside the office. It was surreal. I guess it was a little safer than sitting in an interior hallway with a book over my head.
laura -
The fire drills we had in the dorms were interesting. Unlike K-12th grades, we weren't warned about them (that I recall). One time it was around 9:30 pm and a girl had to get out of the shower and throw on a robe to come outside. It wasn't a big deal since it was a girls dorm and the guys were across campus.
The scary thing? There actually was a fire in another dorm across the parking lot from my dorm (not the same day though). It was an electrical fire. I don't remember if it started from a curling iron, or just an outlet that created a spark.
That's one of the main reasons we were not allowed to have candles or other similar items.
Once I was out of the dorms, I think there was one other fire in a dorm. No one was ever hurt, but there was smoke damage and water damage. The girls lost most of their clothing that didn't burn, because they couldn't get the smoke smell out of it.
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