Monday, November 22, 2010

Letter to the Crazy Lady

At one of the middle schools I've been assigned to work at as a counselor, I was told to work in Room 40--the speech therapist's office. I work there on the day she isn't at school. It is the only room the school has available for me, they have said, and so I have no choice. Because she is A Crazy Lady, I am super careful not to move or touch anything, or when I have to, I put it back exactly the way I found it. I tiptoe around her damned room, but this has not stopped her from sending me Crazy Emails containing accusations such as (among other things) that I have touched her pencil sharpener, allowed students to sharpen their pencils in her sharpener (Eegads!), and used her computer (which is password-locked). She also complains that the thousands of chairs in her room have not been arranged in the exact same way she left them, which includes knowing which exact chairs go where (there are at least three different kinds of chairs and the Crazy Lady has precise ideas about which go where). Here is the response I sent her today, being very fed up.

Hi _________,

I am sorry about any trouble I have caused you. I am truly doing my best. I have never touched the computers or electric pencil sharpeners, and neither have the students. I have never moved or touched the desk.

You are right that I moved the chairs, because I have an eight-student group that comes in and needs to sit around the table. So I put the chairs around the table in the middle of the room. After the students leave, I tried to return the chairs, but because I had not made an exact count of how many chairs were originally around the table, it is possible I was off by one or two chairs. In other words, it's possible that one or two chairs were still around the table in the middle of the room, as opposed to around the table pushed against the right-hand wall.

I will do my best to ensure that the room remains in its original arrangement, but I think it is fair to say that there may be some small sign that I was there (such as one extra chair around the table in the middle of the room). Unless I take a photograph when I walk in, there may be some small discrepancy. Would you like me to bring a camera to work? I would rather not, because it gives me an extra thing to remember and I am lugging so many things with me already, but I will if you would like. Otherwise, these small signs of my presence will probably continue, and I do not want to be in a conflict with you.

The only other possibility is that the school finds another place for me to be, and they have already told me this is not possible. And the final possibility is that we can discontinue my presence at the school, which of course is the most extreme scenario and I would rather we don't come to that--but it is a possibility.

Please let me know what I can do, and again, I apologize for any inconvenience.