Irritated and Embarrassed!

My contracted hours are 7:15-2:35. Students hours are 8:05-2:30.

Anyway, I overslept this morning and didn't arrive at school until 7:35.

My principal was directing parking lot traffic and saw me arrive late. She didn't say anything to me in person, but I received an email later in the day that said, "Is there a reason why you were late this morning?"

I wrote back, "I'll be completely honest with you--I overslept."

She didn't respond.

I felt pretty embarrassed that she caught me arriving late, but at the same time, I was irritated because I spent two weeks (prior to the official day that teachers were scheduled to return to work) setting up my classroom and making sure they ordered all the reading/math materials I needed. I stay every day 'til 4:00-5:00 and she knows that because I sometimes park next to her and she is often gone before I leave.

End of rant.

 

No one cares what you do on non-contracted time. If this ever happens again, call the office and tell them you're running late...it happens to everyone, but it's best to give a heads up instead of coming in late and hoping no one notices.

And go buy yourself a LOUD alarm clock...or a rooster.

 

My father-in-law has this saying: 1 aw-s*** can erase 100 attaboys. It means that sometimes one mistake can trump all the other good things that you do. (In the interest of preserving my FIL's reputation, I'll add that he very rarely swears. This expression is something that his dad said to him when he was growing up.)

You should definitely call the office when you're running late. They'll appreciate the heads up and be better able to cover for you, if necessary.

Beyond that, you can't really do much about this situation, so you'll need to let it go. Just try to avoid this kind of mistake in the future.

 

I set 2 alarm clocks. I love sleeping in the morning!

 

That's exactly what I'm going to do.

This morning, I turned off my alarm, rolled over, and fell asleep!

 

This is why I'm always on time when I sleep with BF. When the alarm goes off, he'll hit me, not the alarm :lol:.

 

You were late. You failed to call in to tell the proper person. You were caught. The P did her job.

I don't understand the irritation. Was the P supposed to turn a blind eye making you think that it was ok to come to work late? Working outside of contract hours doesn't negate that you failed to be there during contract hours. It almost sounds like you are justifying and trying to make the P look like the bad guy. I'd think the P was failing to do her job if she failed to ask. It also let you know that coming late without notification isn't acceptable regardless of how much extra you put in.

 

Better idea. When the alarm goes off, get your behind out of bed. Just do it regardless of how you feel. Problem solved.

 

Speaking as someone with sleep problems, sometimes it's not that simple.

 

I set an alarm to make sure I get to school by 6:30 to go walking with a friend. I don't actually have to be there until 7:45 so even if I did turn off my alarm I'd probably still be on time :lol: But I rarely oversleep and usually only when I know it isn't *that* important (like for breakfast with my mom, where she doesn't care if I'm 5 or 10 minutes late).

I will say I can see how irritating that would be. Our students basically get 5 free tardies a semester. They're not considered excused per se but they're basically considered s*** happens. If I was late I would call our secretary but I know our P would be okay if it was just one time and I was still there before the students were there. On the a side note, I can't believe how long your contracted hours are in comparison to the students' hours!

 

2 alarm clocks and 2 dogs that get fed at 5am ... there is no sleeping through that.

Don't be irritated. Take the lesson, move on.

 

It happens. When we are running late, we just send a text to our P. He gets it, he has been the one late himself a time or two.

P.S. We have a morning meeting every day. He's come late & explain why. When it's traffic, we now that a couple of others will be late also. He'll tell us that so & so is running late & he needs help covering the class until that person gets there. Fortunately, it's usually only for a couple of minutes.

 

Ive done the same thing!! The problem is that when your alarm is by your bed, you might not be fully awake when you turn it off! :haha:
I've also completely slept through loud alarms. In my dream, I hear the alarm going off and no matter what I do I can't shut it off...when in reality it is my alarm that's going off. Does that make sense?

I would be embarrassed and irritated, too. I hate being late. If it were habitual, then it would be a problem.

One thin that has helped me is setting three different times on the alarm, and putting it across the room. That way, even if you hit snooze, you'll be so irritated with it going off every minute you'll just get up.

 

Everyone is getting used to our new principal. I was at this school for five years and returned this year (after leaving to another school two years ago). Our former principal was really understanding in terms of people running late every now and then, so she never said anything to anyone.

I'm not painting a negative picture of her. I'm simply stating facts. We don't sign in/out each day, so she said today (in a school-wide email) that she expects us to call the sub system (even if we're planning to be late by 3-5 minutes).

 

Not quite the same thing as this. But twice now I've woken up about 15 minutes or so after my alarm was supposed to go off and gone OMG MY ALARM NEVER WENT OFF! But I'll check it and it's on and set (it's set to daily). So I must have turned it off in my sleep but have no memory of it

 

I've done that!

When I start doing that I know that I'm tired & start going to bed earlier!

 

I have sleep problems, also. It's not always as simple as being able to just "wake up" because your alarm goes off.

 

I set my physical alarm clock for 5 am and then my cell phone for 5:10 am, but I usually wake up within minutes of 5 am naturally.

I don't know if the OP has sleep problems, but for some of the other people who mentioned it....have you tried the all natural sleep aids? They work very well in my experience.

As to the email, I think the principal is probably just trying to start off tough, like we do with our students. She probably has a lot to prove. In other jobs I've held, I've been late once or twice and called ahead of time. I think calling the sub system for 3-5 min late is absurd given the students don't arrive until 8:05 anyway.

 

I am so bad at waking up early! I'm always scared that I'll oversleep, so I set one normal alarm clock and set 3 separate ones on my phone.

 

So if you're running ten minutes late, you can't call the office and give them a heads up? Won't calling the sub system alert someone to try and find a sub for you, and then you'll have to call when you get to school and undo the whole thing? That's a little nit-picky to me. I really, really value being on time, but life happens sometimes.

 

I take Melatonin every night, but it's really only helpful for minor sleeping issues. I took Ativan for three years. Now that really helped, but apparently it is discouraged for taking for long periods of time because it is so addictive. Bummer.
I hope to take a sleep study sometime this year if my insurance will pay for it.

 

I take Lunesta on occasion (I did last night) but it makes me wake up extremely groggy! :|

 

You call the sub system, type in the absence time (for example: 7:15-7:20) and you also type in the code for "no sub needed."

It's a hassle.

 

Unfortunately, Lunesta didn't help me. Also, it gave me a weird metallic taste in my mouth. I'll probably go to the doctor in the next month and see about Ambien. The grogginess is an unfortunate side effect of sleep aids.

 

This one worked wonders for me:

http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Made-S...UTF8&qid=1345770393&sr=8-6&keywords=sleep+aid

 

It happens. I wouldn't stress over it.


I set an alarm next to my bed, an alarm in my bathroom (so I have to get OUT of bed to shut it off), and my cell phone is set so an alarm goes off every 3 minutes. I have managed to sleep through this hmy:
Even as a kid, I had a hard time getting up. My mom used to dump a glass of water on me to get me up

The funny thing is that I am actually a morning person. I naturally wake up about 7:30, I am happiest in the morning, etc... But if you try to get me up before 6:30, you will have a hard time.

 

Seems like something that would waste time and make you even more late...I would guess she just wants to have a record of who is late and how many times. Someone that anal about 3 or 4 minutes would make me nervous to work for!

For the sleep aids discussion, I have sleep problems too. At various points I've tried ambien, lunesta, and sonata with no success. I would still take quite awhile to fall asleep, and when I woke up I would be WAY more tired/groggy than if I had barely slept at all. I was barely making it through the day I was so exhausted. My friend suggested Melatonin and I tried it with pretty minimal success. I find if I don't take it for a LONG time, I can get away with taking 3 pills and it will help me sleep for one night. If I try to use it twice in a row it doesn't work. I only use it for special occasions when I know for some reason I REALLY need a lot of sleep for the next day. People that just fall asleep right away have NO idea what it's like. Getting up in the morning is extremely difficult when you're habitually running on a few hours of sleep through no fault of your own.

 

That is ridiculous. Is this her first time being a P?

Even retail jobs give you a 5 minute leeway.

 

Yes--it is!

 

How are you supposed to do this while stuck in traffic?

That is a bit ridiculous for 5-10 minutes, especially prior to student arrival.

How about treating people like responsible professionals and accepting a few minutes late once in a blue moon? Obviously, if it's a recurring issue, that employee needs to figure things out in a hurry.

 

YTG, I understand your frustrations. And what you do on non-contracted time should be taken into consideration. It does matter. Just imagine you not doing whatever it is you do during that time...of course it matters! Clearly you work hard and long...you're not a slacker sliding in the parking lot late each morning. You're a human who didn't respond like a computer when an alarm sounded.

The principal has the authority to ask you why you were late, but I still find it...I don't know...just, really? You're going to jump at the first opportunity to approach a teacher for an incident that didn't at all impact students?

 

I've always fallen asleep easy, I just wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep until about an hour before it is time to get up. So, I do know moringing tiredness and running low on sleep. That is why when that alarm goes off, I get up, regardless, no rolling over or I'm done for.

I understand when people say they don't hear the alarm or have multiple ones set up in random places. But when you hear one and do have issues with sleep, you just have to get up otherwise you will be late.

 

I saw a few really cool alarm clocks on tv once. One shot a Frisbee into the air that you had to get out of bed and retrieve and put it back in the docking station to shut the alarm off. The other basically would roll of the nightstand and around on the floor until you picked it up and pressed a button on it.

Perfect for the heavy sleepers, or as a gag gift.

 

It wasn't intentional, but I agree with others that a call to the office might be good. That way you can go in knowing you've already informed the school.

 

I SO need that frisbee thing!

 

I always have to set two alarm clocks because I don't trust myself in the morning. I have turned my alarm off in my sleep more than once!

 

Ha...those sound like they would serve me well, too! I have also seen those alarm clocks that have the blinking light. Those look like they would be effective, too!

 

I've heard of alarm clocks/lamps that gradually (ever-so-slowly) brighten and get louder...supposedly, that's less "jarring" so the human body wakes up more refreshed and ready to get out of bed.

But as with other alarms, that may work better for some than for others.

 

Ouch. I feel you. It happens to the best of us. The best way to combat oversleeping is simply to get enough sleep (and there are plenty of other benefits too).

I always set my alarm to at least two and a half hours before school starts (because it takes me an hour to get out of the house), and I just spend the next hour and a half getting my coffee, getting to work, and taking a breather or doing last minute prep.

I calculate at least 9 hours before my alarm is set to go off, and then set an alarm for that time. In many ways, that alarm is harder to listen to than the morning alarm. But it means I better start closing up whatever I'm doing and high-tail it to bed.

You should wake up easily when your alarm goes off, or even before your alarm goes off.

Enjoy your mornings nice and slowly, and don't rush them.