Monday 23 September 2013

Losing motivation when you are working your notice period

I've got 5 weeks left at work and it's killing me. The same problems are rearing their ugly heads - poor timetabling, late decisions, students with lack of motivation. Thankfully, I'm leaving soon, but the question is, how do I get through these 5 weeks?

The thing is, if I didn't have a new job to go to, I would be really struggling at the moment. I have a horrific timetable where I am working from 8:30am-7:30pm with strangely timed lunch breaks for Monday and Tuesday, and then rushing across campuses Wednesday and Thursday. I can't get back the extra evening hours I'm teaching so I'm basically working 3 hours extra a week for free. I don't like the job, there's no way I want to do it voluntarily!

The thing is, I feel like I should just do a bad job from now on until I leave as they can't exactly fire me or put me through disciplinary proceedings at this point. The trouble is I just can't willingly fail the students, and it feels so out-of-my-comfort zone to do things badly on purpose. I could let students go incredibly early and not bother doing much work with them, but I just can't face it. Therefore I'm slogging my guts out and offering to help others instead.

Thankfully the end is in sight but it's such an effort to drag myself through this tough timetable. We're ridiculously under-staffed so students are being thrown into my lessons and the mixture of groups in one class is a struggle. I'm half tempted to sign myself off with stress for 5 weeks, but it's not in my nature. Plenty would (and have).

I honestly can't wait to walk away and not look back. There's a work experience girl who has just moved to the area and has a degree in English that is applying for my job, but I'm pretty sure the students will eat her alive. She's more than welcome to have the job, I sure as hell don't want it. The college can't even get agency staff to take positions, but then they hire people who are totally unsuitable.

GET ME OUT OF HERE! I just hope any pray my new job is better organised.

How do you feel once you know you are leaving a job? Do you start to wind down or do you carry on as normal?

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