Happy? Can’t have that!

 

 

I shouldn’t have even thought it. There I was enjoying the morning feeling happy. Things were at last going well. I had had time to write undisturbed. I was about to drive to work shortly and enjoy listening to the Woman’s Hour Drama on the radio, then once at school in the car park where squirrels peeked at me from behind a tree I would have time to read a chapter of a book before going into the school to teach. That’s when I thought it: something that I should not have dared to think: I’m happy!

Big mistake!

The cogs of the universe were already turning no doubt with precognition that I would soon have such a thought. It lost no time in putting its machinations into action.

Happy? Can’t have that!

As I went downstairs a letter popped onto the mat. I had a sense of foreboding as I picked it up. Followed by utter shock as I read its contents.

“With immediate effect you must not work as a Supply Teacher or any other teaching role until the General Teaching Council have confirmed to us that you are registered.”

Teachers have to pay the GTC every year to remain on their lists. I thought I had done so. I had sent them a direct debit instruction. When this was returned to me I sent them a cheque. I thought I had paid months ago.

A phone call revealed that at the time when my direct debit instruction had not been processed due to a problem with the sort code unbeknown to me I had been de-registered. My cheque which had then arrived could not be processed as it needed to have been accompanied with a fresh application form. I had known nothing about this until the County Council had sent me their letter.

“you must not work”

I downloaded a fresh form carefully filling it in noticing for the first time that such forms are read by computers. It would have been a computer that had not read my previous direct debit instruction and deactivated my registration.

The GTC were quite happy for me to continue working and gave me 28 days grace to get the matter sorted out.

But the County Council despite being informed of this refused to budge. Their computer screens showed that I was not on the register. The twenty-eight days grace was meaningless to them.

“you must not work” The Human Resources lady, the one who had deactivated my employment at the beginning of the school year informed me.

Apparently, it takes between seven and ten days to process an application at the GTC and then following on from that I have to wait for the council to be informed before they in their turn can send me a letter to say I that I can work. So I guess that means two weeks.

When you only get paid by the session and have no resources to fall back onto this is harsh indeed.

So my good name at the school where I’m working is besmirched. I’m now letting down the kids I tutor.

All because a computer could not the read digits I’d written with a cheap biro pen, I’m surmising, for my sort code.

Nightmare.

I rang them, pleaded, spoke to line managers.

“We have to protect the children,” I’m told.

They were intransigent. Until the fee is paid I can not work.

And once the computers whirl and finally sort it out, giving me the green light, will there still be a job for me?

So despite working for them for thirty-three years I am regarded as a danger because a computer glitch could not read my digits, and no human could be bothered to ring up and say,

“Sorry about this, could you please just give us your sort code again please?”

How long would that have taken them?

Seconds!

Instead, I am now having to wait days to be reinstated. While the mis-named ‘Human Resources’ team in County Hall play with their computers and stare at their screens like brainwashed zombies.

“Can’t I pay by credit card? Debit card? Fill the form on line?” I asked the lady at the GTC.

“No, you have to send it in by post,” she answered.

Why, oh why, do they even bother to have computers? I wonder. They were supposed to make our lives easier. Their inflexibility and lack of initiative make them a poor substitute for humans. If indeed there are any humans left out there.

I feel that the GTC is ripe for the chop, and as one of it’s victims I would be more than happy to swing the axe!