A Clique? You have to be kidding me!

Wow, people amaze me on a daily basis. It's not just their actions, but their blatant stupidity.

I know that not everyone knows me terribly well, but you have to either not know me at all or live in your own little world to think I’m a snobby, cliquey person who tries to demean people. But this is what one of my colleague believes about me.

So here’s the drama filled story…

I am so burned out right now that I keep to myself at school. I get to school at 6:45 am (a half hour before we have to be there), stay in my room through lunch (I have kids that come eat with me every day and I’m working through lunch most days), and then have kids in my room until 3:15 when I leave (I leave on time most days because I go to the gym or run). Rarely do I even interact with other adults in the school building. I don’t even see my friends who work there. I see Kappy when we go to the gym to workout and Susie when we run. Robert and I work together during our prep periods some days and sometimes I talk to Louise for a few minutes about planning. That’s it. That is the extent of my daily interactions except with the security guards who stand outside my room.

It is so limited for a few reasons: 1. My classroom is upstairs and on the other end of the building from the Math wing (I’m only teaching Math right now), so it's not convenient to go visit down there. 2. People piss me off too much because I am so worn out. So I do what is best for everyone and I just hide.

A few weeks ago, it was brought up in a department meeting that there is a clique in the Math department that is causing people to feel hurt and left out. (I wasn’t at the meeting, by the way, because I was at my interview) This girl, Renee, is my age, but only in her second year of teaching. She teaches computers and math, so she’s straddling two departments as well. She goes on to glare at my friends and imply that the one who really needed to hear this was gone. Meaning me!

How the hell am I part of, let alone the leader of (as she implied) a clique that I don’t even associate with? I’m never around. I never see Susie and Kappy during the day. I see Robert, but we’re mostly working on the class that we both teach. The other one that is part of the clique is Eric who we never see either because he's the drama director and always busy with that. It is so ridiculous. Just because we teach high schoolers, doesn’t mean we need to act like them.

So, today, I discover that my schedule for next year (they don’t know that I’m trying to leave) has been changed. For the past three years I have been kind of the head of the Algebra 2 classes: designing curriculum, writing exams, setting the standards, etc. Next year, I’m not teaching it. So, I was talking to a friend briefly during my prep period today because it had just been revealed to me that I wasn’t teacher Algebra 2. I was in the middle of asking if I had missed something at the last meeting when Renee walks by. She mutters under her breath, “I’m so sick of this damn clique” as she walks by. My friend and I were both completely in shock. Then she proceeds to walk to my department head’s room and say that I’m complaining again and trying to get everyone against my department head. She also goes off about how I’m a bitch and I’m making the clique worse than ever. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?! (Did I mention that she sat next to me at the staff meeting on Monday and we talked more than I did with the others sitting around me?)

What a freakin joke!!!!

We’ve been laughing it off for a while, but now I’m starting to get pissed off.

If you were to know me, you would learn that I cannot be mean and live with myself. I have the biggest guilty conscience issue, so if I hurt someone’s feelings I’m miserable until I make it up to them. I’m also the one who has friends in all different groups because I don’t necessarily like being part of only one group. I have my close friends, but am good enough acquaintances with many that I could walk up and talk to them comfortably. But the biggest thing is that I am the most self-conscious person on the face of the earth. I would never consider myself above or a better person than someone else. That is so not me.

But I guess that is who I have become (according to one idiotic colleague). How ridiculous?!?!?!?!

I think one of the things that bothers me the most is how can anyone think that about me? I have never “excluded” someone from anything. How can someone know me and say that I’m mean and demeaning toward others? The other thing is how can someone I’ve worked with for two years (I’ve only been a recluse for the last few months) not know me at all? You get what you see with me. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m the totally nurturing type. I’m such a softy. I care about everyone (which drains me emotionally sometimes), but that is who I am.

This is how my Friday ended. Now I get to go into a three-day weekend feeling horrible. What have I ever done to her? We’re colleagues, not best friends. I am more than cordial to everyone, but I don’t think we all need to be best friends. Am I wrong in thinking that I don’t need to establish tight friendships with everyone I work with? I don’t even have enough time to do my school work, sleep, and bd :). How am I supposed to do that? Isn’t my focus supposed to be on my students? Isn’t that why I’m here? Not to make new friends and socialize with my colleagues.

Sorry for the rant, but I hate feeling like this.