UGH!

I hate going back to work after having a sub. As I explained here I rarely get a decent sub who knows what he/she is doing. This time was only slightly better than my nightmare-ish subs.

I got in this morning and found a neat pile of papers. Some I needed, some I didn't. Why in the name of all that is good do subs collect every scrap of paper the kids work on WHEN IT'S NOT IN MY LESSON PLANS? Trust me, I have enough trouble keeping up with all the papers I'm supposed to have in my hands. I don't need to have additional papers to keep "safe".

Then, on top of that, I have papers from Period 1 in the Period 5 stack. Sigh. Lovely. Because I have oodles of time to sort through all the papers and make sure they're all in the right piles.

I asked that he/she leave me a note. He even UNDERLINED it on my lesson notes. Did he leave me a note? NOPE! Gah! I don't even know whether my students behaved appropriately or not. I can't deal with them appropriately if I don't know whether they did anything. Seriously, if you sub and a teacher REQUESTS a note, LEAVE ONE. It really is helpful to us. No, we don't look at you badly because the class may have lost it's mind. Trust me, we know our classes and where the "hot spots" are. It really helps us to know if the normally well-behaved angel acted like he was possessed by Satan himself when we're away. Really. It's not a reflection of your teaching if they act out.

Also, wouldn't it be a good idea to actually USE the answer keys I left you? Really, it would help. Especially since there were two assignments I needed graded that would have taken five minutes to correct together with the students that I now need to take time out our lessons tomorrow to do when it would have not interfered with what I had planned had you done it per my directions.

Well, at least my room wasn't destroyed. My desk was still where I left it and no one seemed terribly bothered about having to have a sub for two days. I guess it went better than I'd predicted. I hate calling in sick and I hope I won't have to again for a really long time.