The End

 

‘You’ve been terminated.’

‘What?’

‘Terminated. Ended.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were deleted from the computer on the 30^th June.’

‘Why?’

‘There was an error.’

‘What?’

‘So you need to bring in all your certificates, and you’ll need a new CRB check.’

I try to go along with what I’m hearing as calmly as I can.

‘My teaching certificate is lost.’

I try to explain about the attic which was emptied and how the certificate was lost.

‘Then you’ll have to write to the GTC and get a letter from them to confirm your certificate. You can’t do any teaching until this is sorted out. You’ve been terminated.’

The word has a dreadful finality. I realise I’m at the bottom of a very difficult mountain, and that obstacle after obstacle is already rolling into place to block any attempts to re-ascend.

It was Anita who’d alerted me to a possible problem, but I hadn’t expected all this. Anita had had half a day’s supply work for me; but then puzzled me by asking if I’d signed and returned the letter.

‘What letter?’

‘The letter that was sent out to all supply teachers. You can’t be employed or paid if you haven’t returned the form that came with the letter.’

‘I’ve not had a letter or a form.’

‘You won’t get paid for any work you’ve done if you haven’t filled in that form. ’

This was how Anita had alerted me concluding by saying she would not be able to employ me on Wednesday after all.

I worried about it all day as I taught spellings, the meanings of words, lines of symmetry, who certain characters were in the Bible, handwriting and listened to children telling me about the Titanic in show and tell.

Working it seemed for nothing.

However, I thought that the matter was something trivial, something that could be easily put right. A phone call here or there perhaps, and all would soon be sorted. All I had to do was to ask for this letter with its form, return it and all would be set right.

Simple!

I was so wrong.

So, very wrong!

More wrong than I’ve ever been before.

‘You’ve been terminated,’ I was told after my third attempt to get through. ‘There was an error. Your name was deleted from the computer. That’s the reason why you were not sent the letter. You’ve been ended.’

The words are bizarre, unreal. ‘Terminated?’ ‘Ended’

I felt like a scrapped computer. Something defunct and obsolete. A programme no longer required.

‘I’ve been terminated? Ended? What do you mean? Why’

I can hardly understand how the words can possible relate to me. Why am I being spoken to with such words? ‘Terminated’ ‘Ended’. They are fearful words. Does she use them with others? I’m shocked and appalled by the way she speaks.

She repeats them mechanically and then tells me I’ve been deleted from the computer. Apparently it happened on the 30^th June.

I have no idea what I was doing on that day as a living breathing person, whilst in their offices my professional dead self was being de-cluttered from their system.

I’m wondering which person did this thing. I’m wondering who had walked by this idle computer, and casually pressed delete upon seeing my name. Why would anyone do such a thing?

I’m wondering what insidious twists of the universe converged at that point to send my name into oblivion. How ever do they know it happened on that date? Have others been affected or was it just me? I’m bewildered.

Whatever happened I am now de-barred from teaching.

I can not be paid for the few days’ work I’ve already worked because I’ve fallen out of the system. I don’t exist.

And I’m now falling into chaos.

I know I’m about to walk into an absolute nightmare to get reinstated. There will be forms I will have to fill in. There are papers I have to find. There will be the problem of the missing teaching certificate. I have to prove who I am by finding my birth certificate. I have to find proof of my address. I have to show a bank statement. I have to attend a face to face meeting if the post delivers all these forms I now have to fill in on time.

I’ve been terminated.

It’s a very strange sensation.

My arms are tingling.

I’ve been ended.

Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me something!

 

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