Category: Real Job Stories

We moved to Alaska on a whim. In 2016 I had had enough with working in Minneapolis Public Schools. More about that in the next installment of realjobstories.com A friend suggested that I go teach in Alaska. On an impulse I posted my resume on an Alaska Teaching Jobs site. Within a week 4 different districts were courting my services. I… Continue reading "Thank You Old Harbor, Alaska"

Here’s a sidetrack from our review of bosses/admins/principals good and bad that is well within the realm of realjobstories.com : You can’t make this stuff up. In my own teaching career I once had a child cough on me, a glob of yellow spittle hitting me square in the lens of my glasses. Kindergartners not washing hands or wiping after… Continue reading "An incomplete list of gross things I’ve witnessed at school by Anonymous"

      Goofy and weird. Admins, good, bad and points in between, working my way backward in the tall, yet true, tales of principals past.      In the years 2018 to 2020, yes the spring of 2020 right at the start of covid lockdown I worked as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) Teacher in a charter school in the East… Continue reading "Everyone knows it’s Wendy"

Author’s note: I’m paraphrasing my colleague’s experience with the admin we both endured.      She was a real B and I’ll tell you why.      Principals are supposed to have your back and keep their word.  Their job is to support and help teachers.      In our remote location on an island in SE Alaska it is a challenge to… Continue reading "Queen of Hearts aka Miss B"

Bad bosses like the Queen of Hearts are so noteworthy in their delicious wickedness that their memory leaves an ongoing echo of ripples in the pond of memory.       Curtain up on this tragedy.     Is the negative energy dredged up by analyzing past admins /principals worth it? Real Job Stories has a project going to review all of the… Continue reading "Queen of Hearts, Act 2"

Real Job Stories strives for selections of around a thousand words. This post relates my recent experience with an admin in a school district in SE Alaska. To do justice to the principal I, we, suffered through in school years 2020 through 2022, RJS needs two parts to properly depict this specimen. Act 1       She was like an evil… Continue reading "The Queen of Hearts, Act 1"

This piece is about my recent admin from school year 2023-2024, memory still fresh and steaming.          On a personal level she could be pleasant but as a professional, Madam Admin had never managed staff or run a school building .          In schools across the land students show up, many not ready for the rigorous academics that is education… Continue reading "Madam Admin"

  Part 1      Over decades of work experience I’ve had both. Mostly the latter.       First job ever I was 14 years old working as a cook in a fast food fried chicken joint.         I had a good boss. The positive memory resonates because I was a good worker, quickly learning the technique of snapping the bone… Continue reading "Good Boss, Bad Boss"

At the beginning of this summer, I answered an ad for a garden help position in a list-serve for desperate students trying to earn extra cash. I sent a text message to the number listed on the ad in the hopes that I could earn a little cash by going over to this woman’s house to help out. Oh well.… Continue reading "Down in the Weeds by Ava Gardner"

Editor’s Note – Sarah is my neighbor, keen observer and FB reporter on the absurd human behavior witnessed on her daily commute on the Minneapolis Light Rail Green Line. Here is a selection of her posts. That personal indignation is a first cousin to a sense of justice is an outlook we can all relate to. Rock on Sarah, your… Continue reading "Train Nonsense by Sarah B."