<p>It’s his usual hyperbole. Suggesting that it’s not unreasonable for a teacher to check email = thinking that the teacher is one’s personal servant 24/7. I hope he didn’t hurt himself with that leap.</p>
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<p>Expecting someone to be effectively on-call 24/7 IS a form of “being at someone’s beck and call”…especially when it is not the universal norm as it is in occupations where being on-call 24/7 is the norm like business consulting, biglaw, ibanking, medicine, etc. </p>
<p>It’s not something most teachers…certainly not ones I’ve known signed up for nor is it stipulated in the contracts I’ve seen/read about. </p>
<p>Moreover, back when I was in HS, it wasn’t the norm to have personal contact information for teachers in my area. Considering the behavior/maturity level of most US middle/high school kids and sometimes their parents I’ve witnessed in class and at parent-teacher conferences…I can only imagine how such information would be abused. We were expected to account for teacher unavailability in the evenings and weekends and plan accordingly. </p>
<p>Moreover, there’s the notion that teachers deserved their evenings/weekends like most working people in my old neighborhood and especially with my parents. </p>
<p>Then again, the latter was derived from coming from a society(The ROC) where contacting a teacher during his/her off hours without his/her prior ok back in the '50s would be considered the equivalent of dropping by and barging into someone’s private home unannounced with the equivalent expected reaction from not only the teacher, but the local community/society at large.</p>
<p>^People tend to be more connected now (not still the 50’s), but it is still up to the teacher in question whether to respond to missives during the weekend or at other “off limits” times. Personally, I check my email every day, and respond as best I can. Having made a grand sum of approx $10/hour for one of my adjunct stints this past semester, I think the students should be glad if I respond at all. But then, we don’t both live in the same third world country.</p>
<p>Cobrat, you’re still mistaken. Thinking it’s reasonable for a professional to check email at his or her leisure on the weekends and indicate that things will be moved forward is NOT the equivalent of expecting them to be on call for you 24/7. </p>
<p>My spouse is on call 24/7 due to the nature of his profession (obstetrics). Here’s what 24/7 means: You respond immediately / in the moment. All other obligations (family or otherwise) are dropped. You work as long as it takes to resolve the issue, and you don’t leave or go to bed until the issue is resolved. Now, tell me again how a quick check of email on a computer, iPad or iPhone and a quick response “Got it; will have the materials to you Monday” are the same thing? It’s ludicrous.</p>
<p>Moreover, email is not intrusive by its very nature. It is not intrusive for me to send an email to anyone I deal with whether I do so on Friday at 3 pm, or Saturday at 11 pm, or Sunday at 4 am, because the person can pick it up and answer it at his or her own leisure. It is NOT comparable to picking up the phone and calling someone, nor is it the equivalent of barging into someone’s private home unannounced. So nice try, but that analogy doesn’t work either.</p>
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<p>No one is talking about personal contact information. We’re talking about a work email address. We didn’t have email when I was in high school - but so what? That’s irrelevant to the world of today, in which we do have email.</p>
<p>^SIL’s FIL was a thoracic surgeon. When they called he went, regardless of what was happening in his personal life. Obviously, ob-gyn docs are always ready to be called to duty. In fact every doctor is ready to go at a moment’s notice should some horrible need arise.</p>
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<p>Actually, to many people any intrusion due to work-related concerns on one’s off-time is considered intrusive by its very nature. </p>
<p>However, some professionals like biglaw attorneys, medical doctors, business consultants, and ibankers signed up for the 24/7 on-call lifestyle after understanding that’s the norm for those occupations. </p>
<p>However, it’s not the universal expectation of other professions like being a teacher/educator, pharmacist*, civil service, etc. </p>
<p>Moreover, email can be very intrusive to some if there’s an expectation, whether written or unwritten that one respond within one’s off-time, especially the weekend. </p>
<p>Incidentally, I’ve encountered many folks who made the same statement about cell phones which I completely disagree with. Especially considering the fact both forms of technology create what can sometimes be overentitled and intrusive expectations of immediate response. </p>
<p>Sometimes measured in seconds as I found from one encounter with an irate attorney when he called while I was in the middle of working with a partner in a separate department of a law firm.</p>
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<li>Dated one. Her off-time was completely off. However, she did routinely work 12 hour days…sometimes for 2 weeks straight.</li>
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<p>^So you are complaining that people who get paid $10/hour are not always instantaneously responsive to emails on the weekends are oh so bad? What planet did you say you lived on again?</p>
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<p>The e-mail did not come from the student, it was auto generated from a 3rd party who is collecting information on behalf of the school. Even then, it is not going to be sent first thing Monday morning, because there are other things that I have to take care of that before I can get to this (I also do mandated counseling so there are students who I need to see, an IEP meeting, an ACS appointment and 2 parent meetings).</p>
<p>But that is neither here or there because at the end of the day, it does not matter if we make 20k or 100K, we are not required in the scope of our work to check e-mail during non-school hours or to be on call 24/7 to students, parents or anyone else. Those that do check do so to have an idea of what needs to be taken care of when we walk in the door on the next school day (for me it is still out of habit from when I worked in corporate life in a position where I was expected to check e-mail after hours).</p>
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<p>If you read more carefully, you’d find I’m actually making the point that it’s absurd to expect such 24/7 on-call* professional norms in occupations in which that’s not the universal professional norm…especially those that aren’t being paid nearly to the same level or command the same social prestige. </p>
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<li>This includes being expected to check/respond to work emails during one’s off-time on evenings/weekends.</li>
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<p>There is no point in continuing a discussion with someone who is bound and determined to consider a 5-minute check of email that can be done at one’s leisure over the weekend to be equivalent to “24/7 on call” or to the “respond in seconds” scenario that you described. No one is asking for a response in seconds. </p>
<p>If you want to be considered a professional, you adhere to professional norms. I cannot think of a single professional who doesn’t routinely check email during off-times and respond / advance / move things forward.</p>
<p>And your girlfriend’s 12 hour days for 2 weeks straight – doesn’t impress me much. It’s just not all that notable, really. I’m writing this at 3 am my time after staying up late to finish something for a client. It’s not that big of a deal for anyone with a work ethic.</p>
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<p>And as I and a few other posters have noted, the above expectation is NOT A UNIVERSAL PROFESSIONAL NORM for K-12 teachers. Somehow, this is not registering with you for some reason.</p>
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- most people from those posh Manhattan neighborhood wouldn’t need a translator, so you wouldn’t have been in the room.
- most people from those posh Manhattan neighborhood turn down Stuyvesant H to go to private schools in NYC or New England boarding schools.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl:
I am impressed, the girlfriend part.</p>
<p>Cobrat, I’m amused at how much your posts remind me of the dreaded five-paragraph essay used in the writing portion of AP tests and SATs. You start out with a thesis and then support it using examples culled from the experiences of your cousins, in-laws, co-workers and such. Then you tie it up nicely at the end with your conclusion (and usually a cute little *asterisk). </p>
<p>I’m confused as to why you feel the need to cite these (probably fictitious) folks in virtually every post. I think people might take you more seriously if you stopped.</p>
<p>Just my opinion…</p>
<p>Well as the OP I must say this has generated lots of discussion!</p>
<p>In my previous work lives I would have expected everyone to be checking their emails at all times, but thankfully I have been liberated from that expectation. My current job doesn’t even give us real access to the network to check emails outside of the office. It was tough at first to get used to, but now I can blissfully enjoy evenings and weekends without thinking of work!</p>
<p>Frankly, it would be a good thing if more people had that luxury. It really is a sad statement about our society that we feel the need to be connected to work 24x7.</p>
<p>crizello - You have been the victim of a thread hi-jack. It happens frequently when cobrat enters a conversation. Pizzagirl nailed it here:</p>
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<p>There are a myriad of relatives and friends that appear to support whatever his agenda is but the underlying theme is this ^. Patsmom also touches on his MO in post #54.</p>
<p>FWIW, I am making absolutely NO statement about those that got caught into cobrat’s convoluted hi-jacking. I drafted a few responses myself and deleted them knowing it would fall on deaf ears.</p>
<p>Crizello, I hope that your DD gets to speak with her teacher today, resolves the situation, and the LOR is sent ASAP. I’m sure you both are anxious to get this wrapped up. Best of luck to her in the scholarship competition.</p>
<p>I think the point is - one person’s ability to “blissfully enjoy evenings and weekends without thinking of work” results in stress for others who might be depending on that other person to do something (and in this case - the teacher appears to have dropped the ball). Of course, this is not “expecting someone to be on call 24/7,” but you know that. Just think how much less stressful the situation would be for everybody if the teacher had been able to weigh in over the weekend and say “I did send it, I’ll check on Monday first thing” or “Ooops, my bad, I didn’t send it” and now they know to reallocate their Monday morning appropriately. Why this is “bad” is beyond me. It seems smart and efficient.</p>
<p>Best of luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,</p>
<p>And as I keep saying again, what’s the universal professional norm in your profession may not be applicable to other professions. </p>
<p>Business consultant or other similar professions’ norms aren’t necessarily universalized ones in other professions. </p>
<p>Why you don’t seem to be getting this, I don’t know. </p>
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<p>Actually, parent-teacher conferences in middle/high school took place in large spaces like gymnasiums so I was there for the entire parent-teacher conference from beginning to end. Thus, I was in the position to witness various examples of upper/upper-middle class parents loudly yelling about “paying their taxes” and “your beholden to me” nonsense in all its dubious glory. </p>
<p>Other classmates serving as translators or volunteer assistants in setting up saw the same thing. And some wonder why so few of us wanted to go into K-12 teaching as a career. </p>
<p>As for #2, that’s not always the case…then or now. Many upper/upper-middle class kids who attended NYC private schools for K-8 opted to attend Stuy or one of the other specialized high schools over continuing on to their boarding school. I’ve also known many classmates who turned down admission to private NYC/boarding schools for Stuy and plenty of Stuy/specialized HS rejects…including many siblings of HS classmates who ended up attending NYC private/boarding schools. </p>
<p>After all, folks like Chuck Schumer, William Kunstler, etc could have sent their kids to any private/boarding school if they desired…yet their kids chose to take the test and attend Stuy once they were admitted for some reason. </p>
<p>It really depends on whether they want to be around a critical mass of highly engaged students/teachers with strong interests/capabilities in STEM, less handholding from the teachers/staff for students with a more independent minded bent, a more highly competitive campus environment versus a collaborative nurturing one, more socio-economic diversity, not desiring to around a much greater critical mass of boorish “you’re beholden to me” upper/upper-middle class kids/parents, etc.</p>
<p>This is a silly thread. Remember, it’s about a teacher who messed up the recommendation letter for a scholarship with a deadline during the weekend. The idea that it would be somehow overstepping to try to get hold of the teacher during the weekend to try to fix the problem is nutty. In my opinion. If the teacher is a reasonable person at all, her response to such a call, or e-mail, or carrier pigeon message, would be, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I’ll fix it right away!”</p>
<p>Hunt - you’re right, a reasonable person, if she read the email, would respond. But if said teacher does not in fact read the email until Sunday night or Monday morning, that does not make her unreasonable. </p>
<p>If anything, it should be the responsibility of the student to ensure that the LOR was submitted to the right place before the end of business on the last day the teacher was working before it was due - in this case the Friday before it was due.</p>
<p>For those professionals who work in an environment where their employer provides the means to check emails, and receive phone calls on the weekend, it is reasonable to expect them to do so. However, assumptions are being made in this thread about teachers, suggesting that their choice not to do so makes them unprofessional. Perhaps 24/7 is expected of teachers in Suburban Chicago, but it is not in many other parts of the country.</p>
<p>Further, there are assumptions about how teachers are paid. It sounds like Chicago area teachers are indeed paid very well, but that’s not the case everywhere. Our kids/parents know we are free to send an email to teachers over the weekend, but we also know we are not entitled to a response until sometime Monday. That’s the way it is done around here. There are many higher paid professionals who also do not make themselves available 24/7 - that’s why they have answering services, or arrange for someone else to be on call to cover for them. </p>
<p>I do hope the OP’s daughter was able to contact the teacher and the scholarship people, to clear this up.</p>