Thursday, July 26, 2018

A Fortuitous Mistake


As I stood in front of the classroom door waiting for security to arrive to let me in (they don't give keys to subs during summer school), the teacher arrived. He was going to be out the next day.

Upon conferring with the summer school principal, he figured out that he had written the wrong day on the request. ("I'm bad with numbers. That's why I teach history.")

Several thoughts went through my head. What was I going to do with my day now? I got up and dressed this early for nothing? But before I could contemplate driving home, the summer school principal had turned her and my attention to a different teacher.

"She can cover your class."

After a bit of confusion, what was happening became clear. The other teacher, Ms. M, had just been discussing with the summer school principal getting a sub so she could leave that day. Her husband was in the hospital. And while she was just hoping to leave early, since I was already there, she could leave immediately.

Perfect timing. And a mistake that turned out to put me right where a sub was needed.

This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. (Luckily I was on hand on a day when a teacher learned her brother had just died in an automobile accident.) I just didn't expect it to happen in summer school.

23 comments:

  1. That's great! I hope his hospital stay goes better than what that poor lady went through with losing her brother. Wow. That must have been an emotional day for all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yea. It was... Yeah. It was rough for her.

      Delete
  2. History has numbers in it, LOL, but cute answer the teacher gave back to you with the confusion of dates. Glad you were there at the right time to help out the other teacher.

    betty

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, good you were around ... thankfully. Sudden illness isn't helpful for anyone ... but it's good when adjustments can be made .. cheers Hilary

    ReplyDelete
  4. You were where you needed to be. I hope her husband is ok.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Life meant to be fair and very often one persons misery is anothers good fortune. You were there when it counted.

    ReplyDelete
  6. -good that you didn't show up for nothing, in the end.

    When I taught ESL at an Adult School, none of the teachers had keys to their rooms. We had to wait for the janitor to let us in.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Different schools do things differently. Annoying having to wait on someone when it's your regular job, though.

      Delete
  7. I guess you're all having a run of good luck. I can't believe he wrote down the wrong day though. You'd think someone who teaches history would be better with dates.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It all worked out in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wow I'm glad you were there to handle her class, perfect timing

    ReplyDelete
  10. I like when things fall together in a good way because of a mistake.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I hope her class were angels so it worked out perfectly for you too!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I don't know if they have summer school here.
    Coffee is on

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm not a huge believer in "everything happens for a reason" but perhaps, this time, it had.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'm sure the principal was relieved they didn't have to make all those phone calls too.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.