Time is your most precious resource. Guard it fiercely and share it sparingly.
As a teacher most of your working day is scheduled to the minute. Please remember that any “free” time you have is yours to spend wisely. The time thieves do not have a right to your time.
In school you will come across different types of time thieves as a new teacher.
Entitled time thieves
The entitled time thief (ETT) can come in the form of a more senior or established member of staff. For example, your Head of Department (HOD). They may therefore think that any free or unprotected periods in your calendar are times that you are available to do their bidding or run their errands.
In my old school there was a HOD who would email Early Career Teachers (ECT) in their department instructions for things like “urgent” photocopying and cups of tea. She would expect them to drop everything, do it and bring it to wherever she was at the time.
The ETT is tricky as you don’t want to create an atmosphere of discord with someone who may be your mentor or line manager. Remember though that you are not a skivvy but a professional.
Be bad at your job
Be a bad but apologetic skivvy. Sometimes skivvies don’t monitor their emails so they may not see a request until it is too late. Be sure to email as soon as you do see it and apologise for missing it. Make the tea wrong or cold, do the photocopying badly or slowly. Always apologise heartily and promise to do it better next time if the ETT gives you any negative feedback.
Hopefully weaponized incompetence (in this area alone) should resolve the problem. If it doesn’t then reach out to your mentor or another trusted member of the senior leadership team and ask for their advice. Tell them it’s about a friend in need at another school. You therefore have plausible deniability if the person you turn to can’t or won’t help.
Make a note of each request every time it is made. Email the ETT once it is done. It is then undeniable that you have being asked to complete these tasks. You can use the emails when you speak to a senior leader or your union if the tasks come within the remit of your duties or if the requests are not reasonable.
Immature time thieves
The immature time thief (ITT) usually comes in the form of an early careers teacher like yourself. The ITT will spend a lot of time discussing just how much free time they don’t have. They will lament the four or five hours each working week during which they deliver lessons. The ITT is likely to be in their first ever professional role, so it may be the world of work that they are struggling with and not necessarily the profession of teaching. Their immaturity can be forgiven if it only impacts them, but you have to guard against it impacting you.
The ITT will want to spend all their time out of lesson hanging out in the staffroom. They will want to spend their time with you gossiping about celebrities, looking at TikTok / Instagram/ YouTube, oversharing about their private life and talking smack about other teachers or the kids.
Thick as thieves
They will initially present as your new best school friend. You will feel like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid going into war together against the rude kids and unsupportive leadership team. At the beginning it will be nice to have a peer going through the same things you are.
Eventually they will be confused about why you want to work when you have a “free” lesson and will feel judged when you ask them anything to do with actually doing work. They will interrupt you when you’re trying to work or mock you when you get excited about your advances in teaching.
The ITT wants to be lazy with you, it’s boring by themselves. They want to talk at you. They are just running out the clock every day – they get paid the same if they work or don’t work. This person is not your friend.
Hide from them
The best way to manage this time thief is to hide. Yes, hide.
There were about eight of us ECTs in one of my old schools and three of them were time thieves. If they saw I was out of lesson I could not shake them. I tried to put in headphones, I tried to give short answers, I tried to tell them that I had to work at school because I didn’t have a computer at home, but they didn’t care. They were bored and could count on me being too professional to be rude and outright ignore them.
I was friendly with the IT guy at that school, so I would go and sit in the IT office and work. They never figured out where I was hiding.
Bore them into submission
If you can’t hide then bore the socks off them with work talk. Ask them to review your lesson plan. Tell them you want to practice behaviour routines with them. Make a date for them to go observe a lesson with you so you can compare notes afterwards. Can they come and observe your lessons and give you feedback? Specify the kind of feedback that you’re looking for from them. Talk about a seminar or lecture you attended – share it in great detail, ask them what they think about it. Tell them about your subject and what you’re struggling with – the topics you need to learn better and the teaching techniques you’re trying to master. And on and on and on. You will soon find that they run when they see you coming.
Debbie Downer time thieves
The Debbie Downer time thief (DDTT) can, of course, be any gender. They can be a new teacher but are more commonly an older more established teacher. Usually, it is a teacher who has lost their enthusiasm for teaching and is either too comfortable or too afraid to leave teaching or the school.
Their remedy is therefore to complain to anyone that will listen. They will entice you in with warm words of wisdom at first. They will promise to help, support, guide and advise you. You may regard them as you do your favourite aunt or uncle. Soon the pep talks will be replaced with their perspectives on small changes that the leadership team could take to improve the running of the school. These perspectives soon become harsh criticisms and eventually rambling rants.
What are we going to do about it?
Give this time thief the benefit of the doubt at first. Listen closely. Ask them to clarify what it is they think is wrong. What do they think a good solution would be? You will soon find that it boils down to nothing more than “I don’t like such and such” or “I don’t trust such and such” or “I hate kids”. If they do come up with policies that they don’t like, ask them what they think should be done differently. Ask them what they have done to propose it to the leadership team. You’ll find that the answer is probably nothing.
They are not your friend. You are being used as a sounding board. No one else will engage with their negativity so they latch on to the unsuspecting newbies.
Tell the DDTT you support them. Ask them to clarify exactly what needs to change. Suggest that you both put an email together to send to leadership with your thoughts. If not leadership then maybe the schools governing board. Alternatively you could both schedule a call with the union for some advice.
They will soon stop seeking you out as someone to vent to.
Seriously though, they are likely to eventually become unprofessional during one of their rants. Careful if you are engaging with them and something gets overheard and reported, you might be deemed guilty by association.
Beware of the bait and switch
This kind of time thief is insidious because they first approach you with promises of care and support only to switch once they have you locked in. You will find that if you do ask them for help or advice, they will either dismiss your concerns or somehow make it about how unhappy they are with the kids / the school / the department / life.
Your time is too precious to be spent listening to someone complaining. Don’t feel bad about getting them to articulate and offer solutions in order to get rid of them. They do not care that they are stealing your time and your joy of teaching.
Steal back your time
Time thieves are industrious. They will do their best to steal your time. You have to find a technique that stops them. It might be malicious compliance, literal absence, aggressive agreement or a combination of all three. Find what works and protect your time zealously.
There is probably no ill intent on the side of the time thief. They just have a selfish desire to have someone to listen to them talk. Your career and professionalism deserve better than that.
Time is your most precious resource do not allow a thief to steal it.
