Bloody Ju

Today in the morning, I saw Lnd a bit absent minded and upset.
"What's the matter?" I asked casually. And she took me the adjacent room and burst into tears!
"I can't handle this place anymore. I wish I could leave right now. Why do they make an issue of such trivialities?"
She had forgotten to tidy up the Gym. That Ju the bitch, came and started yelling and brought on Ul the manager to the scene just to blow this matter as big as possible.

I hugged her silently feeling so bad for her. I consoled her as best as I could. She recovered soon.
I guess, I am overreacting but it is so mean to make issues out of things. She seems to do it on purpose and I do not enjoy being insulted, complained about and shouted at. A bad start for today..."

It ended the same way as it had started. Well almost...

On Fridays the Yellow group has its meeting and so one from the our group and one from the Green group goes there to attend to the children while the teachers can have their meeting. Today, Mrn decided that two of us would go to help them out leaving just one teacher in our own so that everybody can say that the Green group doesn't help out and doesn't cooperate. Sounded extreme and the reason behind is both the Yellow and the Orange groups are trying to hunt down the Green group and sort of shutting them out or incriminate them. I have many times heard Mrn talk ill about them for really no reason. If anything, Grch is extremely hard working and innovative which is exactly why she has enemies.

 Well, so I and Jnn went to Yellow group. We did everything that was supposed to be done. Then when the snack was over I started dressing the children. One boy got an elbow push from another girl and he started crying. Just at that time Ju walked in and saw him cry. She just got the opportunity she had been in search of since the moment last Saturday when I said in the meeting that the paper (which she had written and I didn't know!) had plenty of grammar mistakes and other conceptual faults.
First she asked me why he was crying.
"Hnn pushed him slightly with her elbow. He is not hurt."
Her face was full of suspicion as if she didn't trust me. She then took him aside to confirm. Two minutes later she came up to me looking thunderous.
"You said Hnn hurt him but he says Alc hurt him."
"Ya that's right. Alc hurt him."
"Isn't there a difference between Alc and Hnn?"
I smiled naturally. " I get confused between these two girls. It was Alc."

Maybe in our next meeting there is going to be a separate point about this in the agenda...

She wanted to make an issue of it just like the morning incident with Lnd. I just somehow didn't let her.
She is hunting me down. Hunting me and the entire Green group. The Huntress!

It is a tragicomedy or a comic tragedy I don't know which term should fit here better, that the top most bosses are good, they spend a colossus amount of time, money and energy to keep develop good relations between employees. A separate department has been formed with hundreds of paid employees just to solve the matters of the internal. Our topmost boss has been offering bonuses to people to introduce new employees - yet at the ground level it remains a cat and mouse struggle with those few cats hell bent on turning other cats into mice and the mice straight into their stomach.

If I am right and if I have the power of justice and truth with me, I am going to defeat this bloody Ju at her own game. I am going to be all smiley smiley with her and will not give her the satisfaction of making my life miserable. She wants to frame me; I will try my level best not to give her any opportunity. She wants to make issues out of nothings. I will not regard her issues as issues- well, this can be maddening for her if she wants me to be upset and angry and I am not.

Oh yes, I noticed those icy cold policewomen speak very nicely to Jn the way they don't to me.

Carnival Party

We had carnival party today in the kindergarten. As per instructions, the children had to put on their costume and face paint/ make up etc in kindergarten itself to avoid scaring smaller children. This rule indeed was beneficial in building up their comfort level and tolerance with lavish costumes.

There was big party breakfast then a short morning circle. Then a tiny parade in which the children joined each other like a train and moved from one group to another. Each group offered a certain activity to the children. The Green group offered an interesting treasure hunt kind of play and face painting, the Yellow group - princess' castle to build and play, the gym - fun games and dance with music and the lab offered experiment with balloons. All the groups had something interesting and thrilling for the children. Only our group - the Orange group and the studio had nothing interesting; these both are handled by Mrn and she was dead rigid on keeping children calm and quiet. So we had only story book reading activity in our group and silently painting/coloring activity in the studio.Understandably both the rooms remained deserted with all the children choosing to visit the rooms where they could enjoy themselves.

The face painting done by Lr was horrible though; she made some children look shockingly ghastly and lurid that we were sort of relieved to wash off the paint an hour later.

On the whole, it was a remarkably quiet day, far quieter than the other days. I see the wisdom of keeping the children calm on a celebration day but still do not understand why should they be kept forcefully quiet on a special day which comes but only once a year when everybody including children and adults have the license to indulge in merry making festivities and wild fun.

I am on my guard...and it is not enough..!

Since yesterday, I just couldn't kick this idea off my mind how could I have been so ignorant until now. I should have paid more attention to all those clues screaming at my face.

I resolved to wear my broadest smiles on my face today and to smile at everyone even though the four police men of the system give you the creepy feeling that they don't just dislike you, they clearly hate you and suspect you for committing a murder any minute.

I met Jas at the station. She wanted to talk to me too. She is another one getting slow poisoned by the environs of this kindergarten. How I wish I could to her too. I can't. She is friend of Mrn and a great great gossip. Talking to her means broadcasting live!

Jn and I were just about to start our morning routine when I learnt Mrn was going home. Before saying Good bye, she casually mentioned to Jn that if any problem arose she could mail her or talk to her. Yes, in other words it meant that she was authorizing her to take control and to privately report any wrong doing. Not soo bad, but how do I know what and how correct is she reporting? Would it not have been better for her to say that we three should work together and discuss with each other if anyone of us is not sure how to do something?
I had one and half hour preparation time. I was so wary of Jn that I returned earlier so that she couldn't say that I overstayed to enjoy myself leaving her alone.

At twelve 0'clock, I went to the Green group to help due to shortage of teachers there. Grch is a hard working teacher but hugely targeted by the police men in much the same way as myself.

"Grch," said I, "you work so hard with the children and come up with such new ideas! I appreciate this."
"Thanks," she smiled, " you are also just like this. It is so unfair that other teachers treat you so badly especially your own group."

I was stunned. I did know deep in my heart that I was being treated somewhat badly; I didn't know it was a common knowledge and that everyone knew it.

I caught hold of Lnd later. She is another nice girl in the hapless Green group. Her heart is not exactly into kindergarten life and definitely has no teaching aptitude.She had admitted many time to me in the past that she can't handle the stress that this place, at times, gives her.

I implored her to tell me if she knew what people talked about me.
"Well, they say you are irresponsible because you can't be trusted to do do what you say you will do. That's because sometime in the past you took leaves and didn't inform them on time. Then they say that you don't really understand what you are told to do. Once there was that incident with inadequate dressing of a child from your group."

I was upset. Terribly upset at this. I took a leave and couldn't inform them on time as I was sleeping under the sedative effects of the medicines. It was a medical emergency. The inadequate dressing occurred just once with me. The other times it happened with Loz not me.

I came back to my group more enlightened on the situation than ever before.
I asked Jn several times if everything was alright. She said yes. You can trust her to say yes and then write a 100 page email to Mrn detailing what crimes I and Loz committed in her absence. As a precautionary step, before leaving the kindergarten, I wrote in the Daily Dairy things that we did so Jn doesn't have the chance to weave lies.

Power game or no power game, I stubbornly refuse to participate. I believe in doing my job honestly and happily. Its like dung beetles fighting, struggling, killing and dying for the sake of what? Yeah. A dung ball. For us it is just a dung ball, for them it is their life, their world, the very meaning and center of their existence.

The world far too much abounds in hypocrites who hug and kiss you like the Judases of the Bible. I am afraid I am no match for this. All the abilities that I have, I have always employed them to acquire abilities and to perfect them. I never did learn Politics and probably never will. Its a sad case and I do not want to lose out to treachery and deceit.

I have always had just this one simple policy. Win your enemies with love. Defeat them with honesty and good work. This cannot harm anybody; at the most it can only harm me. The road is difficult but I would rather be right and fail than be wrong and succeed.

Dirty and Dangerous

I was quite happy with the situation until yesterday but suddenly clouds are flitting aside revealing a somewhat dangerous facet which I, for some reason hadn't bothered to think about.

Nothing is as it seems..

Until now I had been considering Jn as a foolish hypocrite and not really anything more than that. Today I met Cl in the park. It seems all Cls are nice people and all Mrns are bad ones! ( She is a very nice middle aged woman with plenty of maturity, wisdom and good heart all of which shows on her face and I always feel drawn towards her.) I told her how Jn in our group who is seemingly far duller and dumber than a mouse is actually playing a clever game of her own. She pleases the boss to the limits of irrationality and carries private conversations to report about others- often times these reports are not even genuine. Already, she appears to have become the right hand person of Mrn!

She advised me to talk to her. "I have realized too that there's a lot of politics going on here; a tussle for power. And what you have told me just now is not just happening in your house, it's common in all the houses here and in nearly all the groups. But from what I have heard, this power game is the probably the worst in your house."

I pricked up my ears! This revelation suddenly fit the parts of the jig saw puzzle I had always been aware of, wondered at but not really analysed them as such. Mrn's taciturnity towards me, Ls, Jun, Sbrn's cool behaviour towards me, their contempt of Grch, Jn's existence from non - existent to nearly full blown right arm...the veiled allusions to certain things, the monopoly during the meetings, mysterious remarks, odd gestures ... it all suddenly started making sense now.

So now I know, both Mrn and Srn are strong strong contenders for top position or at least remaining on top and brutally trampling any other who dare climb up even an inch. They  also happen to be great friends together in much the same way as Mz and My. On the second rung of this killer ladder are Jun and Ls. Together these four guard their ladder and act as the owner or the under cover police system of the house. They roam about, passing through the diaper room, art studio, corridors and etc hunting for evidence of the single wrong done by me or two three hapless others. And if they catch you doing something wrong they don't request you to remedy your fault. They will smile their sweetest and let you do it and then publish your faults to the whole world without you getting a whiff of it.

It is disheartening to realize that no matter how good I am with the children, no matter how unprecedented good results I may have given to the parents, the children and the group, no matter if I possess a true spirit to do my best for the kindergarten and to learn quickly, I will still be judged in the extreme negative for doing something nominal such as forgetting to put on the cap on a child or changing my activity status on the magnet board....

Surfing in a new sea...same waters, different name, and I'm not complaining

I do so much want to resume my daily dairy about my kindergarten but am always so short of time. I will give it a shot though...

So a quick recap..

After I left that Kindergarten, and that was a little more than a year ago, I realized I was fast slipping into something like depression and melancholia. I would think about the horrible occurrences over and over again and every time I went to sleep would have a nightmare about Chri, Ank and Consti. I tried keeping myself busy, self learnt keyboard and then enrolled myself in a German course that pretty much ate up all my time to prevent me from brooding, yet the nightmares continued without fail...

One day, after three months to be precise, I received an email from Mrs Wlz asking me if I wasn't working then would I like to work in her Kita again under different conditions. I met her and talked to her to my heart's content. I was glad to hear her confess that she knew I had been a victim of conspiracy and mobbing by her staff. She also admitted that the same group which had begun doing so exceptionally well under me started rolling downhill as soon as I left and now it has reached such a lowly depth that she can only think of me to save it.
She offered me double salary, group leader position, offered to get my degrees recognized and complete command on my affairs totally uninterfered by anybody else in the school.
I accepted. The day I had to sign the contract I had to fly home to see my very ill mother. I stayed there for one month. When I returned Mrs Wlz regretfully informed me that she couldn't wait so long for me so she had employed somebody else. I admit it was like a big jolt to me but God does work in strange ways!
He had planned something else for me...
The same day, I received an urgent email from a Ja. She had worked in the same Kindergarten for two and half years and had resigned and joined another kindergarten, allegedly a big one! She wanted to refer me this big one now and immediately.
I did and bagged the offer with excellent salary with a truck load of perks. Dramatically, the day I received the confirmation email from this kindergarten, I received a second offer from Mrs Wlz asking me when could I join!

So I landed up in this kindergarten with the reference of no other than a colleague from that crazy hellish place.

Now I have been working at this place for eight months. It is a huge place with more than twelve groups and a gigantic staff. It is rich and luxurious, sometimes even extravagant and lacks practically nothing, nothing at all.
My horrible experience at the last one has doused a bit of my fire, I admit. I am more cautious now and prefer to keep myself deliberately hidden and underplayed rather than do anything nice and attract people's envy and jealousy.
My colleagues are pretty good, at any rate they are much much better than those old ones. Surprisingly, Ja is not the only one from that place here. There is also Gl the English teacher who I had replaced in that kindergarten! There are at least 8-9 people from that place and when we meet we always talk about how unbelievably bad that place was!

Just yeasterday, I was talking to Gl and she disclosed that about a month or so ago, Chri too applied here but was rejected. My heart missed several beats in a row!!!!!