Extreme makeover????

[LWolf]

Argh!!!

Friday I had a hard time keeping my classroom focused. There was a camera crew outside the window, going in and out of the classroom next door. I didn't think anything about it; I thought it was a performing arts project.

Monday morning I get to work and there is an email asking us all to donate some of our sick days to the teacher from that room, because she will be out for 6 weeks. I'm concerned. What happened? What life-threatening illness/injury will leave her kids with a substitute for 6 weeks?

She "won" an extreme makeover. Apparently, a tv thing? I've never heard of it. I don't think I want to. They sent a camera crew in to film them suprising her with the big news.

So she's getting a bunch of cosmetic surgery. This woman is young and already beautiful. There's not a thing wrong with the face she's got. Not ugly, not plain, no disfigurement.

Her class will spend 6 weeks with a substitute. And I'm supposed to donate my earned sick time for this.

Am I wrong to be appalled at the priorities here? At the shallow mentality, or lack of self-esteem that would lead a beautiful young woman to think she needed surgical help with her appearance???

[Lost4words]

1. what an example she is giving her students.

:puke: I think you are correct, hang on to your sick days.

[WilliamPitt]

2. Screw her self-esteem

Where does she get off bogarting your earned sick time? What happens if you actually get sick?

Gas face to this.

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Your sick days are YOUR sick days.

You have earned them.

[Ilsa]

4. Just say "NO!"

I don't blame you one bit. But it is possible that your coworkers may consider you jealous for not giving up a day. I think she's got alot of nerve to ask for them. Was that ABC programming that put the school up to it?

Are there others that feel as you do? Are there other teachers with bigger priorities, like a terminally ill or aging relative that they need time off to care for? Perhaps you could designate your time off for them instead and make a point of it if it isn't too politically risky.

[LWolf]

5. It's not required.

It's voluntary. There's a precedence; many of us donated days 2 years ago to a colleague who was undergoing treatment for a critical illness, which she did not recover from.:-(

I don't have to donate my days. I just have more days banked than anyone else; I've been working 20 years and hardly ever use them. I could give them without missing them. But I won't. I'll save my donations for someone who really needs them.

[eyesroll]

6. Good!

I used to teach. When I was a student teacher, my colleagues donated sick time and personal days to a colleague who had a brain tumor. (As a student, I didn't have sick days, but I would have donated some if I did.)

But non-reconstructive, non-necessary, COSMETIC SURGERY for a makeover show is not a tumor. Just repeat that to yourself and feel better.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Good on ya.

She's getting 50 grand worth of surgery, clothes, and gawdallknows what else to be on a network TV show.

And she wants you to donate to her????

[Maddy McCall]

12. So did my father...

and with illnesses in his old age, he needed EVERY ONE of those sick days to get through it.

The precedent is not comparable. Apples and oranges. ONe person had a critical illness, the other opted for unnecessary surgery. How dare anyone suggest that colleagues donate time to her.

[supernova]

20. A critical illness is one thing

donating one's sick time to a person in need is entirely understandable, even if they don't make it.

But to be expected to donate for elective plastic surgery is asking too much. She's being taken care of by the TV show she's on. Let them foot the bill.

[Iris]

10. Who cares what your coworkers think?

And if you don't want to get in a big stink with them just don't tell them you're hanging on to your sick days. It's no one else's business.

[Maddy McCall]

13. Right...no explanation needed...

But I would be honest and upfront if cornered. I would say that you have been generous with your time in the past when the critical illness required time off, but you cannot donate to this cause, and are saving your time in case you or your family members become critically ill.

[Iris]

15. right. I wouldn't lie about it if asked.

In fact, I'd bet some people would agree with not giving sick days for something this frivoulous.

Furthermore, isn't anyone thinking of her students? Why would any teacher or administrator think this is acceptable?

I have a great-aunt and great-uncle who had no children, but are a very strong part of our family - always with us on the holidays, etc. Most employers would not allow me to use bereavement if one of these dear relatives dies, esp. if it involved taking several days off to travel to their funerals.

This whole thing just disgusts me.

[LWolf]

17. I'm thinking of her students.

I could not conceive of doing that to my kids. Right now they can't even find a long-term sub; it's a different person in there every day. Hopefully they'll find someone to take the class for the duration soon.

[booksenkatz]

8. Some "teacher" she is!

The best teachers I know/have known (past and present) would *never* leave their students for 6 weeks for vain pursuits. She's not very committed to her profession, is she?

I wouldn't give her diddly dick. Let her pursue vanity on her own time.

A Daughter and Sister to Wonderful Teachers,

[latebloomer]

9. Absurd!

And, yes, a pitiful story to come back and tell the kids about-- what grade does she teach? Some role model-- "You can never look good enough. No matter how good you look, it's not good enough, never accept yourself for who you are, have a surgeon cut you up so you can look like the latest bubblehead prancing her stuff on the Disney Channel."

[Maddy McCall]

11. Who sent the email?

I'd be damned before I'd donate my sick leave to such frivalous pursuits!

YOu get the flu and have no sick leave because you gave it to someone who OPTED for cosmetic surgery. I think the person who sent the email out has a few screws loose.

[blondeatlast]

14. Fork that. Donate your time? I'd agree this is sick,

but time is NOT what is needed.

Sheesh--no guilt for this one.

[dofus]

16. Just one more vote here

in the Don't Give Her Any of Your Sick Days column.

I'm equally appalled. For one thing, given that teachers do tend to have a hunk of time off in the summer, couldn't her surgeries been scheduled for then?

But no matter what, I'm appalled.

[amazona]

18. don't donate your sick time

There is nothing wrong with people changing their bodies to suit themselves so if she wants the cosmetic surgery, good on her. However it is theft to ask you to give up YOUR sick days for this purpose. Call me mean and petty, but I wouldn't.


did you think i was always purple?

[Ivory_Tower]

19. Donating sick time is not uncommon...for illnesses

But donating sick time to someone because she won a prize?

Sorry, but that just seems inappropriate. When another colleague is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness later in the year, is everyone going to say "Sorry, can't donate...gave my time for the extreme makeover"?