Mrs. Ram's Jams

Tag: teacher problems

• If Teachers Responded to Student Emails Honestly

  Posted at 9:43 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 28, 2021

  

  Down here in south Louisiana, we’ve already finished our third week of school. I love the beginning of the school year (new kids! new ideas to try out! a fresh set of flair pens!), but I wasn’t expecting my email inbox to already be chockablock full of emails from students. (Mental note: teach students the art of a good subject line.)

  And I might be “that” teacher, but 95 percent of the time I don’t email my students back. Why, you ask? Because these are the types of emails I get and the way I would respond, indicated in brackets and italics, if I actually had time to respond and could be completely honest in my responses.

  1. You put my grade in wrong in PowerSchool.  [I, in fact, did not put the grade in incorrectly in PowerSchool. You very much made a 72 percent on the test that I JUST entered into the gradebook 60 seconds ago. Stop checking your grades and emailing me while you’re in Algebra.]
  2. Why did you give me an 80 on the writing assignment? [I didn’t GIVE you anything. I assessed you for mastery of the skills. I JUST entered grades into the gradebook 60 seconds ago. Don’t you think I’m going to explain scoring when I HAND THE ASSIGNMENTS BACK?]
  3. I submitted my late assignment from a week ago. Can you grade it right now so my mom will give me my phone back? [Oh sure, I’ll stop grading these 106 narrative retellings that are test grade assignments so you don’t have a zero for a participation assignment when you already have an A in participation.]
  4. This is the third email I’ve sent you telling you to grade my late assignment. [I’m sorry, but as per my syllabus that I read to you on the first day of school and made you sign, it says that I grade all late work after current work is graded. I’m knee deep in grading the Hero’s Journey test from yesterday, the rewrites from two days ago, and the complex character exit tickets that I forgot existed until 30 minutes ago. I’ve reiterated loudly at least three times this week that it can take me up to two weeks to get to any late work and that I won’t respond to emails like these. You’ll know it’s graded when it goes in PowerSchool. If you wanted your grade entered in a timely fashion, then maybe you should have turned it in on time? In fact, since you sent me this email, I’ll more than likely put off entering the grade for another three weeks because you keep spamming my inbox.]
  5. Can I have an extra day to do the assignment? I wasn’t feeling well yesterday. [No. The other kids ratted you out. You were all over everybody’s SnapChat last night being messy and not sick at all.]
  6. I’m going to be absent all of next week because we’re going to Disney World. Can you email me all of my assignments? [You and I both know that you will not complete any of this work while you’re on vacation. And I’m pretty sure you’re just emailing me this because your parents asked you to. But you probably weren’t supposed to tell me that you were going on vacation–because even though your parents asked you to email me for the work, they’re also going to try to get a doctor’s note to excuse your absences for your competitive cheer competition. And I can’t email you all of the assignments for next week because I haven’t made any of them yet, LOL. I’m not panicking at all about that. Not even a little bit. But you sending me this email did make me start panicking about it. And you and I both know that those assignments will be posted on Google Classroom on the day that we do them in class with full instructions on how to do the lesson on your own. Have a Dole Whip for me.]

   So I don’t respond because

  1. I like my job. And I’m pretty sure I’d get fired if I responded that way.
  2. Some of the student emails are pretty accusatory. “You didn’t do this” and “you did this wrong.” But I know that stems from students not understanding the tone behind these statements in email.
  3. I’ve answered these questions before in class or I’m going to explain those questions the next day.

  But I actually do respond. Just not in an email. I stop them in the hall or pull them aside for a quick chat about what they sent me–because talking and interacting with them is important and way easier. I can quickly address how their tone in the email made me feel and that they might want to choose better words. I can explain their question in person. And I can do all of this while not having to revise my emails for tone. And I don’t have to spell check/Grammarly/proofread my conversation with them either.

  And the emails that are important I do respond to, professionally. 

  Promise. 

  (Now all I want in life is a Dole Whip. Why did I even bring it up? Sigh.)

  
  Posted in education, teaching, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged education, teacher, teacher problems, teachers, teaching

• A Teacher Tale: How I Botched the First Full Week Back to School

  Posted at 10:46 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 14, 2021

  

  To make you feel better about yourself, let me tell you about how I fucked up every single day during my first full week back to school.

  • I made 250 copies of our summer reading assignment to distribute to all 8th graders. While counting out the handouts to give to another teacher, I noticed I didn’t put the word “the” in a sentence. So into the trashcan all of those copies went. Giving up, I told my coworkers I wasn’t going to make fresh copies of the newly edited document, and I was just going to post the revised document to Google Classroom. (My reasoning here being that I forgot how much I hate making copies and the copy machine was already being an asshole—maybe because I only used him once last year and he was harboring feelings of neglect at me giving him the cold shoulder. He ran out of paper and jammed five different times when I was using him just to spite me.)
  • On the second day of virtual class (I already have three kids quarantined), I forgot to start my Google Meet during fourth block until 12 minutes into class. In my defense, I am used to having virtual class at third block, but considering I didn’t start a Google Meet during third block either, I really have no defense for this. (And y’all, I wasn’t prepared for the different Google Meet layout either, so I’m going to have to spend some time playing around with it, you know when I actually get time for that kind of thing. Who am I kidding? I’m never going to have time to do that.)
  • I walked out of my house yesterday morning in CLEAN jeans and a SPOTLESS t-shirt but somehow walked into the school building completely FILTHY. I had a ginormous brown stain on my left pant leg and what looked like deodorant on the bottom right corner of my Parish Champs basketball T. But I didn’t spill any coffee and it’s not like I rode to school with the bottom of my t-shirt tucked up and into my armpit for safekeeping or to air out my stomach because of the 99 percent humidity, so the cause of the stains remains hidden. So, I tried to make the stains go away by drenching a wad of paper towels with water and scrubbing the spots with enough gusto to make my arms hurt, and I ended up looking like I tossed my clothes into a puddle. I walked into the lounge to put my lunch in the fridge, and conversation stopped at the table, and one of my coworkers, I shit you not, pointed at me and said “HA HA! YOU LOOK LIKE YOU PEED YOUR PANTS.” And another coworker cackled about me for a solid three minutes. Another coworker thought I was just “mystery wet” (his words). THEN I HAD TO STAND OUTSIDE OF MY DOOR AND CHECK UNIFORMS LOOKING LIKE I’D HAD AN ACCIDENT AND FORGOT TO PUT ON MY DEPENDS ON THE FOURTH DAY OF SCHOOL. 
  • Speaking of uniforms, I’ve already messed it up forever with my first block. I’m pretty sure they hate me because I have to be the uniform police and issue citations, and there’s only like 5 of them out of 26 who are following the school’s uniform policy. I’ve already had kids arguing with me about it, and all I’ve done is tell them which part of the policy they’re not following–I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED GIVING THEM CITATIONS YET JUST WARNINGS. I can’t tell you how much I hate having to enforce dress code (for various reasons including how it unfairly targets girls and is just a relationship ruiner between teachers and students–this doesn’t happen with every student, but it does happen.) (I know this bullet is a stretch for “messing up,” but I needed to vent.)
  • Because apparently I can’t read, I created chaos and confusion for two other coworkers and sucked a collective thirty minutes away from their already hectic day yesterday. I apologized to them both profusely.
  • I posted a student survey for kids to work on the second day of school and was talking about it for a full five minutes before one kid was like “It’s not on Google Classroom.” And come to find out I had scheduled it to go live at 7:30 p.m. instead of 7:30 a.m. Whoops!
  • Pretty sure I was an asshole during a staff meeting too (and this might have happened the week before last), and I didn’t mean to be, I didn’t choose my words well and my tone came off a bit more passionate than I needed to be when discussing why kids shouldn’t be allowed to have AirPods in school. I forgot how to people well over the summer, and I’m going to keep working on that. 
  • I don’t handle small talk very well and overcompensate by trying to be funny and fail miserably at being funny most of the time and just look like a lunatic. Why say all of that? Because this was me all of prep day on Monday interacting with students and parents who I’ve never met before. (I’m not kidding here. For example—during my sophomore year of college I got pulled from talking to rushees during sorority rush because I barked like a dog, a really poor attempt at being funny, at a girl. To nobody’s surprise, she didn’t think it was funny. So during rush for the next two years, the only thing I had to do was stand, clap, and sing. I’m not even sure how I got into a sorority in the first place.)

  How did you mess up your first week, teacher friends? Or was it just me?

  Posted in education, teaching | 0 Comments | Tagged education, middle school teacher, teacher, teacher problems, teachers, teaching

• A Teacher Tale: Why Students Might Dislike Me

  Posted at 10:46 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on June 27, 2021

  

  Earlier this week, a colleague of mine, whose son I taught, Facebook messaged me about a TikTok of my cat that I posted to my story. She said that my TikTok account horrified her son (because old people can’t be on trendy apps?). But that’s not the real reason I’m explaining this. She also said in the message that her son liked me as a teacher and that he said he couldn’t understand why so many people in the class that I had him in didn’t. 

  Did this revelation sting my teacher pride? Just enough for me to say “ouch” and move on. It didn’t even leave a tiny welt, but it left me thinking about why students may dislike me.

  1. This is just a personal observation, but some students equate subjects they dislike with disliking the person who’s teaching it. It’s flawed logic, but have you met middle schoolers? I ask them to do hard things like write essays and make them read difficult texts on their own (and so many of them despise reading and writing). Then, I have high expectations and ask them to rewrite and rewrite again. In some of their minds I don’t like to read and write and redo assignments I’ve already done adds up to I don’t like the teacher who makes me do it. 
  2. I hold them accountable for the school rules and their behavior in my classroom. I try to be consistent, and I know I don’t catch everything, but I will not let them just “do what they want,” particularly when it prevents them from getting their work done, inhibits others from getting work done, or makes for an uncomfortable learning environment because of racist/sexist/anti-LGBTQ+ comments. They’re middle schoolers. Of course they dislike being fussed at and written up, and guess what—they’re going to dislike the person who does it too.
  3. I make them uncomfortable—Part A: I am not a Southerner’s glass of sweet tea. I’m from Illinois where we drink our tea unsweetened. I do not lay on an outer layer of charm. I’m blunt and logical and do not hide behind layers of fluff. You cannot butter me up like a delicious cast iron-made, golden biscuit. This can be shocking to my Louisiana students if they’ve never had a teacher from somewhere else. Parents called me “That Damn Yankee Teacher” at my first teaching job in rural Louisiana. It’s good for the students to be exposed to people from different areas than their own. I’ll forever be offered as tribute and be disliked for this very reason because I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. This Midwesterner can handle your child’s dislike of me just because I’m different from what they know. (Sidebar: I know I’m not alone in this. I know several teachers who have moved from other places to teach in Louisiana, and they’ve told me the same thing.)
  4. I make them uncomfortable—Part B: We also talk about difficult topics in class, and that makes them uncomfortable. It’s not just diagramming sentences and asking comprehension questions about Romeo and Juliet in English class anymore. Heck, the canon is no longer comprised of only dead white guys. If you haven’t been in a middle school or an English classroom in a decade or two, it looks completely different, and we barely teach what teachers taught twenty years ago. We talk about questioning traditions and gender roles throughout history. We talk about racism and the Holocaust. We talk about suicide. We talk about war. We talk about religion. And then I ask them to write about those topics through the lens of literature. They might balk against these topics because they’re exposed to different ways of thinking and different cultures and that makes them uncomfortable. And guess what, them being uncomfortable in my classroom might translate into them disliking me.
  5. I’m a woman. There. I said it. You might be thinking, she can’t possibly be serious when most teachers are female. But, y’all. It’s real. It’s a thing. Some students yeet dislike my way simply because I exist as a woman in a classroom, a woman who doesn’t fit into this nicely-shaped-ridiculously-tiny-preconceived-notion box of what a female teacher should be. 

  Is the takeaway from this that your child would walk into my classroom and hate me? No. As far as I know, I haven’t heard that the 8th grade tea’s flavor is that all-students-hate-Mrs.-Ram. I’ve heard mostly positive feedback about myself from students and their parents, but I’ve never won and will probably never win any popularity contests. 

  I think the takeaway from this is that when your student tells you they don’t like a teacher, don’t just take it at face value. Ask them to vocalize why they don’t like a particular teacher and try to get them to elaborate. That dislike might just be flawed reasoning, unwillingness to take responsibility for their own actions, discomfort, or society talking. 

  Posted in teaching | 4 Comments | Tagged middle school teacher, teacher, teacher problems, teaching

• Teaching Fail: When Acronyms Backfire

  Posted at 9:32 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on February 20, 2021

  

  My students and I have been working on argumentative texts, and I swore on Facebook not too long ago that I would ensure my students would never forget how to evaluate an argument and a source.

  So I turned to Google while lesson planning and discovered the CRAAP method for examining sources. All you have to do is ask yourself is this source CRAAP to analyze for currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose–and voila, the children remember how to evaluate a source! And they get to say CRAAP in the classroom, so it makes them feel like they can cuss but actually aren’t! Students love that cusp of danger feeling! 

  And my teacher soul radiated warm fuzzies every time I heard them say CRAAP while discussing texts about failure.

  CRAAP never sounded so good! CRAAP was magic! They were learning! They would know forever how to evaluate a resource!

  Well.

  It backfired.

  While my students did test corrections yesterday, I examined exit tickets that analyzed if a failure fluff piece from Medium.com was a compelling argument.

  What did my students do in their formal writing???

  Used the word CRAAP–EVERYWHERE.

  I audibly groaned everytime I came across a sentence that said “this source isn’t CRAAP.”

  Not only did they come up with incorrect answers (sigh, only like five kids said the source and the argument itself was crappy), they actually thought saying CRAAP in their writing was a brilliant idea!!!

  After having done a badass job of teaching how to evaluate sources and arguments using articles about failure, I WAS AND AM THE FAILURE AND IT MADE ME FEEL CRAPPY.

  Crap. Crap. Crap. Extra Crap.

  What if they do that on their benchmark???? Or god forbid the LEAP test????

  How do I get the CRAAP out of them?

  Well, that sounded terrible, but you know what I mean!

  Looks like they’re in for a crappy Tuesday because they’re going to be rewriting those exit tickets. 

  (Sidebar:  When I looked at these same exit tickets, so many students kept referring to the author by his first name. I asked my fourth block why–because they fully know to use the author’s last name. Their response? His last name was too hard to spell so it was easier to use his first name.)

  

  (gif credit)

  Posted in education, teaching, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged education, funny, teacher, teacher problems, teaching

• A Teacher Tale: Teaching During a Pandemic Update #1

  Posted at 10:25 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 17, 2020

  

  Don’t get me wrong, pandemic teaching is rough, an understatement, but my teacher life got a gazillion times easier last week.

  My school had its fifth first day of school last week. What a weird thing to type, but it’s 2020.  Here are the five first days we’ve had:

  1. The first day for Group One students.
  2. The first day for Group Two students.
  3. The first day teaching in-person and at-home learners.
  4. The first day with both Groups One and Two on campus.
  5. The first day for previously at-home learners.

  At the first nine weeks’ end, our Home Based Virtual Learners (HBVLs) had the option to come back to physical school, and so many did. And while it’s fantastic to finally meet them IRL–cue me squealing in excitement through my mask while taking a HBVL’s temperature last Wednesday Jayda!!!!! It’s so nice to meet you in real life! Look at you!–It. Was. So. Strange.

  I’d just been teaching heads and necks, sometimes just eyebrows and foreheads, and instead of floating heads eerily levitating through the hallways on Wednesday morning like a Disney Channel show’s terrible Halloween episode, those heads were connected to BODIES. Some of my HBVL boys are GIANT, and it completely caught me off guard.

  And something that didn’t catch me off guard–the freedom afforded by being unchained to my computer screen for four blocks. Because with more HBVLs on campus, administration gave us the go-ahead to create a virtual school schedule, so I only teach virtually during third block now. 

  

  (GIF credit)

  I can stand up if I want. I can move around more, even though I’m still keeping my distance. I don’t have to constantly monitor the Google Meet chat, my email, and Impero (our student technology monitoring software) every single class. I don’t have to shut down a Meet at the end of every class and start a new one while trying to make sure the in-person students are social distancing, know what’s due the following day, and are walking into the hallway on time. There’s more normalcy, but I know it’s possibly short-lived with fall’s onset and increasing numbers of COVID-19 throughout the country.

  And while those students returning to school has made teaching a gazillion times easier, other aspects of more students on campus are troublesome:

  

  (GIF credit)

  • More students means less space for social distancing in the hallways and in the classrooms.
  • More students aren’t wearing their masks properly.
  • More students are sharing supplies and food when they aren’t supposed to.
  • More students are sitting in cramped classrooms without their masks on eating lunch.
  • More students means going through more sanitizing wipes, and who knows if and when we will run out. 
  • More students means more are showing up to school sick even though they should stay home.
  • More students is harder to manage than fewer students.
  • More students makes it appear like the coronavirus is disappearing when it’s not. 

  And like I said, I’m ecstatic more students are back and actual teaching is easier, but we can’t forget that this isn’t over yet. Please do your part to help keep all students, teachers, and everyone else safe. 

  There’s only so much teachers can do. 

  

  (GIF credit)

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged teacher problems, teaching, teaching during a pandemic, teaching middle school

• A Teacher Tale: What Teachers Really Think About Parent Emails

  Posted at 9:22 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 10, 2020

  

  Hey Parents and Guardians,

  We teachers are more than happy to answer your questions and concerns via email, but before you hit send, could you ask yourself a couple of questions first?

  Before you send that email to your child’s teacher, is it kind?

  We are working our educator booties off this year.

  A mean email can derail our entire day and even week. We cry over these emails. We lose sleep over these emails. We have panic attacks over these emails. We might even turn a little mean ourselves when we get these emails and lash out at our own loved ones in misdirected anger.

  We then have to respond to an unkind email, try to turn the situation around, and wait on pins and needles for another response, which again, could be an angry one. 

  It’s a vicious cycle.

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, can you find the information somewhere else?

  We are working our educator booties off this year, and parent emails create more work for teachers.

  Often times when you email us, the answers to the questions you’re asking have already been given to you. If you look on PowerSchool you can see the answer to why Johnny has an F. He didn’t complete three test grade assignments, and there’s a note for every single missed assignment. If you’re questioning our late work policies, the answer might be on the syllabus, which you actually signed off on, stating that you read and understood the policies laid out on it. 

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, consider if it might be better to come in for a face to face (or a Zoom) conference with all your child’s teachers.

  We are working our educator booties off this year, and parent emails create more work for teachers.

  It takes a lot less time for us to talk about your concerns versus us writing an email back.

  An email that you wrote that maybe took you two minutes to compose can devour our entire 75 minute planning period. Yes, it can really take that long to reacquaint ourselves with your child’s work, write a thoughtful detailed response, and proofread until we go cross eyed–because heaven forbid an unsightly typo exists in it that you could use against us, to further prove your point that we’re incompetent.

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, and this one is going to be hard to swallow folks so prepare yourselves, ask yourself, could your child be lying to you?

  Children lie. All. Of. The. Time. 

  They cheat. They plagiarize. They fib about why work isn’t done and tell tall tales about their assignments being done when they’re not. 

  They’ll claim that teachers aren’t helping them and that teachers don’t like them and that teachers are mean and and and and and and and. 

  And while occasionally these claims might be true, more often than not, they aren’t.

  And then when we point out these things are untrue, we still aren’t believed sometimes. 

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, are you a teacher too?

  These are the worst emails, emails from parents who are teachers too. 

  Have I sent a snooty, condescending email to one of Little Thing’s teachers?

  Yes.

  And I’m terribly sorry. I don’t know everything, I’ve never been in your classroom, and it was a really shitty thing to do.

  I’m trying to be better because I know how terrible parent emails can be.

  So before you email your child’s teacher ask yourself:

  Is it kind?

  Can I find the information somewhere else?

  Is it better to have a conference?

  Is my child lying to me?

  Am I teacher too?

  Posted in teaching | 3 Comments | Tagged english teacher, parent emails, teacher, teacher problems, teaching

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Teaching Woe: Grading Papers over Thanksgiving Break

  Posted at 1:07 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on November 24, 2018

  

  In previous posts, I’ve declared I don’t grade at home, but I’ve just proved myself a liar.  

  During this Thanksgiving break, I’ve spent at least 10 hours grading four class sets of five-paragraph argument essays. And I’m not even done yet. Ten more essays wait in my backpack. Hours ago, my resolve to knock them out crumbled like an overbaked Christmas sugar cookie.

  So why exactly am I stuck grading for hours while I’m on vacation?

  1. I can’t get ahead this year. No matter what I do, my workload just increases. For starters, I have two different preps. Then for major writing assignments, I allow students to revise for better grades, so I’m constantly regrading. I’m also battling with finding time to reteach skills to students who need extra help, respond to parent emails, analyze data, etc. I barely found time to start grading these essays last week at work, so I took them home over the break in an effort to not feel so overwhelmed at school on Monday.  
  2. It’s taking me longer to grade because the grammar is cringeworthy. Y’all. It’s that bad. Run-ons are an epidemic. Rambling is the norm, and the awkward syntax is fascinating, horrifying, and soul-crushing. I’m either choking down sentences that make no sense, or drowning in independent clauses comprised of millions of tiny words that say nothing. Normally, I could grade all these essays in seven hours, tops. But essays written with poorly constructed sentences are more time consuming for me to grade, and an inordinate number of them fall into this category. Why? Why? Why? P.S. When did the random capitalization of common nouns become a thing?     

  Whew. I feel better. Thanks for letting me vent. Now does anyone want to grade those last ten essays for me so I can relax with the latest Jodi Picoult novel? Pretty please?  

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 0 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, teacher problems, teachers on break, teaching, writing

• Chronic Illness: Playing Phone Tag with Doctors’ Offices

  Posted at 5:32 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on June 8, 2018

  

  Because of chronic illnesses (fibromyalgia, Meniere’s disease, Raynaud’s, and IBS), I frequently contact my general practitioner, rheumatologist, ENT, and gastroenterologist.  Unfortunately, talking to someone alive the first go-round never happens.

  My doctors work for large hospital systems. For patients, no direct lines to a specific doctor’s office exist. I call the main hospital phone, listen to an automated message, press a bunch of numbers, get transferred to the doctor’s nurse’s line, and leave a message.  

  I completely sympathize. Medical professionals are overloaded just like teachers and can’t be constantly available therefore they use technology to filter and take messages.

  Also, I’m not calling to get free medical advice over the phone. I see my gastroenterologist every six weeks and my rheumatologist and ENT every six months. I schedule these appointments weeks or months in advance because it takes weeks or months to actually get an appointment. When my health suddenly shifts and I need specialist care, I call to make an appointment and often none are available. That’s when I resort to phone tag with doctors’ nurses because my doctors have expressly stated I can call and they will help via phone.    

  During the school year, it’s even harder to get in contact with doctors because I’m at work and in class before doctors’ offices open, I can’t call while I’m teaching, and my first break isn’t until 12:45 p.m. Then it normally takes an hour or two (or 24) for a return call.  (Again, I don’t expect an instantaneous return call. It’s like students expecting me to grade 100 five paragraph essays magically as soon as they get handed in. Not happening.)

  And if I miss the return call, then it’s necessary to repeat the aforementioned process because 98 percent of the time my call is returned when:

  • I’m using the bathroom, and my phone is on the kitchen counter, halfway across the house;
  • I’m driving through a school zone (No I don’t have bluetooth in my car, and yes it is still legal in Louisiana to be on a handheld device while driving–but not in school zones.);
  • I’m in class, and answering phones while teaching is severely frowned upon. #TeacherProblems;  
  • It’s my off period, and I could answer my phone, but I don’t get service in my classroom so by the time I sprint to an area with service, I’ve missed the call.  
  • I’m speaking with a different doctor’s nurse, and it’s rude to say, “Can you hold on for a sec?”;
  • Little Thing, watching Youtube Kids, has my phone and hangs up purposely instead of answering;
  • I’ve accidentally left my phone in the car for two minutes;  
  • I’ve forgotten to switch my phone off silent after the workday ends or after I wake up;

  OR

  • It’s 3:58 on a Friday afternoon, any bullet from above (except number three) conspires against me, and the doctor’s office closes at four–so I’m shit out of luck until Monday and the whole vicious cycle repeats.     

  I hate playing phone tag with the doctor’s office. The whole process is a colossal fiasco.  

  It’s 2018 people. I challenge the world to figure out a better way for doctors’ offices to communicate with patients.  A three or four phone call interaction per individual instance is comically ineffective.

  (I’ve even tried direct messaging doctors’ offices through apps like MyChart, but I’ve never gotten a written message back. The nurse calls in response to the emailed message. Go figure.)

  Surely the doctors’ nurses find themselves frustrated, too. Returning patient phone calls can’t be their only professional responsibility.

  How much time and money are wasted per salaried professional because of calling the same patient repeatedly over the same issue?

  Maybe it’s minimal, but the notion nags me–just like the fact that they’re never available when I am.    

  Posted in chronic pain, fibromyalgia, meniere's disease, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, calling the doctor, chronic illness, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, meniere's disease, teacher problems, teaching, writing

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