Clematis

Hard to tell; I saw Michael my boss today and he was about on fire with rage at me at a meeting with a principal (who really likes me) and the SpEd teacher who helped start all of this by complaining about me when she was too new to know if she even had anything to complain about. My boss was firing questions and issuing challenges at a rapid fire rate while I tried to answer them. Some of what he said was totally irrational. I had a conversation with a parent two days ago and talked to the principal about it right away. He talked to the Gen Ed teacher who was primarily involved and she talked to the mother, who went to PHX yesterday to see the student's doctor, and today she brought in these crazy documents. Having showed them to me and my having had 5-10 minutes from when I first heard of them, Michael demanded to know, "Why didn't you have a meeting about this?" So he got the papers, called a meeting, showed me the papers at the meeting and wanted to know why I hadn't called a meeting about the papers that came to him and I first saw at the meeting he called. We were talking about an upcoming MET-2 and IEP meeting and how to handle it. Anyway, the principal was ready to take charge of the part of the MET meeting related to these problems, and was that OK with me (yes, please). The SpEd teacher couldn't have been sweeter to me and asked, can I do this for you, do that, explain this to the other people we need to get pulled in, offered to do the extra paperwork Michael was demanding, etc. I was too stunned to even think or process the crazy stuff her was saying. They were SO nice to me - both of them. I suppose it was apparent that Michael was firing away at me with no reason or rationality, but with both barrels. Michael also insisted that we do something that is totally against SpEd law... determine that a student qualify as "Other Health ImpaIrment" with an (undiagnosed) learning disability that is not a medical problem. The law is rather clear. I have had several people suggest to me that he is bullying and trying to box me into doing something that is against the law. He has told me that if I refuse to do something that is against the law it is insubordination. Huh. The other school psychologist is laying low and trying to stay below the radar screen. I think that is terrible. If the positions were reversed, I would be right there with her. That may be part of the problem; that in addition to my skills, smarts and abilities, I appear to be fearless, and will speak out against something I feel is wrong. I guess that's why I have found myself so many times being the only person in a situation who will take a stand and say something, even when many others agree with me, He sent me an email today saying that we are not going to have our last two meetings to discuss my "improvement plan", but will meet on March 27 to discuss my evaluation, the improvement plan, and his formal and informal observations. I wonder if this is because he is just done with me, or is it because I complained to the human resource manager that these meetings had been such harassment and upsetting that it had interfered with my sleep, life, and ability to actually do my job? He was SO angry today...because I had complained about him harassing me to the HR lady? Because I talked to the principals about how he was requiring me to have meetings at their schools that would be likely to cause them lots of problems even though I did so very sweetly in the interest of satisfying my improvement plan and better serving the schools? Or some other reason... I did wish today that I had brought my little tiny covert recorder with me today...maybe I should bring it with me every day, just in case...

I think you're right about him, that he feels threatened. And it doesn't help that I don't back down. I am never disrespectful, but never obsequious either; just straightforward and honest. I watch him as he circles around mentally like a cat watches a bug, not to make him uncomfortable, but well, how could I not watch him closely? He is a danger. I think he is trying hard to hide, but when he looks at me fears that I see right into him. Partly true, but I am not sure what I am looking exactly, only that something is seriously wrong. I'm really not trying to threaten him... I suspect that my plan of helping him to open the door to success, being right, winning and saving face might work. I'm sure he has other things to do rather than haggling with me. In any event, it won't last long, because they are supposed to either offer me a contract or announce I am not being offered a contract by April 15.

Thanks, George! I think I may have found a way out...explained in my post above to Marty...

Thanks, Kay! And what a luscious looking cake! My sisters both called me on my birthday and were very nice to me. I spent time with Herman and with my neighbor and good friend Doriene. I had flowers and some cake and a little trip to a small national park nearby. But most of all, my precious Lena...

Thank you so much for the good wishes. On Saturday night I played cello in an orchestra concert and was talking to my friend Paula, the retired vet, who happened to be talking to another woman that I really don’t know very well. Paula wandered off and I continued talking to this other woman Susan, who just happens to have worked in the education field for more than 30 years before she retired. I had been updating Paula about this situation and Susan just kind of jumped into the conversation as if she was already on the same page. I filled her in on a few details, and in addition to telling me that I should basically lie, smile, and say that I absolutely would do everything he wanted, she also said that administrators really want to be right and they really want to win. Huh. So woke up this morning and I think I figured out a good plan. I sent him an email this morning and suggested that we might try to focus on the spirit and essence of what he would like me to do and maybe that would lead to more success than we had in totally focusing on the details. The devil is in the details... Michael has a tendency to act impulsively without thinking things through very well, and so his plan for me is resulted in a series of details that he has insisted that I follow. Unfortunately these details were all some combination of unreasonable, impossible, and/or possibly fraught with legal risks. I suggested that if we focused on his intention, or the spirit and essence of his desired performance for me I would certainly be able to be successful at that. That would enable him to get out of the situation, save face, be right, and win. Of course the same would be said for me. To get this thing going I talk to all three principals, mentioning to each one that I had this plan - which they knew about – and that Michael wanted me to have these pre-meetings before the MET-2 (Eligibility Determination) meetings. I told each of them that I very much desired to be successful in my improvement plan but wanted their input on how to help make this work at their school. Each one told me that they had concerns about the meetings, not only because it would be cumbersome if not impossible to schedule those meetings, but they also had apprehension about the legal risks. So I asked them what other way would be good for them as far as how I could get them the information they needed. One principal said she would like me to just email her, one said she would like me to call her on the phone, and the third principal told me that I should just text him and we would figure out where to meet up on campus or to chat on the phone. And his campus is the one where my office is housed so that will be very easy. The second part of my strategy is to start talking to the SpEd Teachers, starting with the one I saw this afternoon. I asked her what would be good for her in the way of timely information. She said three days would be the least unless it was a blazing on fire emergency for some reason, but a week would be better. Generally I have gotten her the information much earlier than a week prior, much less three days. She said she could really care less when I got that stuff in to the Met section of IEP-PRO because she doesn’t look for it there. I suspect the other teachers will say the same thing except the one teacher who does get stuff out of IEP pro and she’s the one who is the outside the district. She’s also the one who complained. But she is a great person and very straightforward. She will have no trouble telling me exactly what she needs in order for it to work for her, and it will probably be the same time-frame as the other teachers and while she does get a few pieces out of IEP-PRO, most of it would be fine in an email. This seems to me like a good plan and would get everybody what they want. The teachers and principals would be get able to get what they want the way they want it, the SpEd Teachers would get their stuff when they need it, Michael can save face, I can get out of hell, and it all seems much more doable than the arbitrary and impossible details he created in order to flesh out his basic idea. The basic idea which was just fine. I think he just wants me to get my information to the other staff in a way that doesn't stress anyone out. Of course the reason we had such a time crunch in the first place that I was late in getting information to people in the first place is Michael's fault - that he pulled Suellen off her job of getting things going and setting up meetings because he needed her to hold himself together. It caused extreme stress on the entire staff that we had to wait until six weeks after the school year started, kind of like starting the school year with a land-slide. But we don't need to mention that all of this was caused by Michael in the first place. I think everyone already knows that... Ahd hopefully I will be able to pull this off.

I thought that I might make a list of my tasks on a given day - like tomorrow and how I set priorities on a list that is always too long to complete because I am truly overloaded. In schools everyone has a job that is more than one person can realistically accomplish in a day . It might help him to make sense of how it is that his desires seem to fall to the bottom. In truth, if he were looking at my list I truly believe he would make the same decision. Every day he would place the legal constraints like timelines, the services to children and families (the basic essence of my job - evaluations), and getting information to coworkers as soon as possible so as to not stress them over trying to meet arbitrarily set internal deadlines. Every day I must make sacrifices of things that do not make the cut for a given day and put them off until tomorrow. I constantly look at the tasks before me and try to decide what are the most pressing tasks for every hour of every day. Things change constantly and therefore the tasks have to be shuffled. Eventually, everything does get done, but the way I prioritize never does. Anyway, today is my birthday and here I am alone with Lena and no plans, But Lena has been extra attentive and sweet today. Well, it is still morning...maybe someone will call me or something...

I started out as a social worker working at an agency straight out of graduate school and they gave me two jobs that were supposedly half time jobs figuring that way I would definitely have enough work to be a full time employee. And then everyone dumped anything they wanted on me, tried to steal all of the best furniture out off my office & replace it with junk, etc. Lenny the boss was a smart guy and he stopped the furniture swapping immediately, saying he was not going to have an agency where one office had all the crap and he allowed all of his employees to just take wild advantage of the new person. But I still had way too much work. Most of the therapists had about 30 clients and I had too many to count. At some point I started closing out all the ones who hadn't really been seen anyway. When I got done with all that and could finally count them, I had 76!. I was totally overwhelmed and went to Lenny. He gave me some advice and told me to take it with me everywhere I went. He told me that the biggest priority was always legal deadlines that would cost your agency if you were out of compliance. He told me that the next was anything that went outside the agency. The next level of priority was things that would really make a difference to clients by getting something they really needed - info for a doctor, that sort of thing. The next level of priority was arbitrary deadlines made up by the administration of the agency. The next was my basic work tasks that were part of my job description, And the lowest priority was whatever else I thought was important. This guy I am working for is telling me that his arbitrarily set deadlines are at the top of the list...

Yeah, I know. I figure it's like having me reconfigure my cell phone since I use it at work, but it's really mean and thoughtless. For his convenience in looking at my information, he is willing to really trip me up at work and wreck my organization system. It would be one thing if this was a district-wide document that everyone was required to use. I am going way beyond what the other psychs have done in sharing information with him and he has gone crazy over it. And the HR lady said to me, well he is your supervisor. If he asks you to do something, you should just do it. Wear my underwear on my head? Do brain surgery on the school secretary against her will without any anesthesia with my MSW training? Wear my shoes on the wrong feet because he wonders if I am as uncoordinated as I say I am? I have been advised by several people to smile and say yes I will do what he wants, even though I have been told this is not possible for a person in my position with my workload (to meet the timelines), and the part about the meetings that are on the line of easy bait for any parent to sue - to just say I'll do that too, but not really do it. When I've told people who have had long careers in education about having all these "pre-meetings" before MET-2 (eligibility determination) meetings with everyone there but the parents, the responses have ranged from "You can't do that!" to "That's illegal" to "I'd be very very careful because you could get in BIG trouble". I have a hard time doing this...cheerfully saying I'll do something that is impossible, unreasonable, illegal, or something that would scramble me so badly I would be function at a worse level than the level that got me in trouble. Maybe it would be enough to say, "I will absolutely do my best to do that exactly like you want it" and say it cheerfully, while knowing that I am not likely to be able to do it.

I decided to ask Becky the HR person about improvement plans and how/whether they were tracked through HR, and was there a district policy about this. She said she really didn't know much and was a little vague told me she'd get back to me. She did call me back the next day with how to find the policy manual online and search for that, although it was about evaluations and nothing much about improvement plans. Then I went to my meeting with Michael yesterday and Becky was there! She was there to take notes and mediate the meeting. This was a big improvement. He was more logical and did not yell at me; when he became frustrated he controlled himself fairly well. The insulting and demeaning comments towards me were much less, but still there. In previous conversations, he had told me to NOT ask families or staff any questions as to whether I had adequately answered questions and explained my clinical findings to the degree that they needed or wanted. Because I have clinical training and experience as a psychotherapist, I am in an excellent position to do this and have always believed that this is one of my greatest strengths as a school psychologist. I track the people at the meetings, especially the parents to make sure that they understand what I am saying and what the team is doing. Parents are typically too intimidated by these meetings with professionals in different disciplines to ask many questions - or any questions. An they are hesitant to express any disagreements about the direction things are going. If they are confident enough to express themselves orally, that's great and it makes it easier. But if they just sit there silently, it is incumbent upon me to find out and make them feel comfortable enough to ask questions, disagree if they do, and to actively participate. I am at a disadvantage in a way here, because everyone else at the table knows these parents, and I am seeing them for the first or maybe second time. I am going into it blind and have to figure out them out on the spot (with an audience of professional peers). I follow my clinical training, watch for cues that they don't understand or disagree or whatever, but aren't commenting. I can generally get them to open up by using empathy and sensitive questions (psychotherapy techniques). I sometimes say, "Does that make sense?" if the parent doesn't say anything but I think they do have thoughts or questions about what I said. But Michael told me that to say, "Does that make sense?" is exactly the same as saying "Do you understand?" is exactly the same as saying "Do you understand?" He followed this with saying that when someone asks him if he understands, he feels like they are saying "Are you stupid?" He told me that I was to ask NONE of these questions, but to only ask at the very end of my presentation, "Do you have any questions?" I think that is a terrible idea, because if the whole thing was too much information, went over their head, lost them a long time ago, or whatever, they are not going to be able to ask questions unless they were taking notes. I have tried to follow his directions, as inappropriate as that might be. Tuesday I was at a meeting where I presented a lot of complicated information about a student's IQ, academic, and clinical information. We were talking about making a change in a student's category of eligibility from one clinical category to another. The parents stated clearly that they wanted this change even without hearing the testing data, but I sent through all of the complicated data. Several people asked me questions, the people from the local mental health agency, from DDD, and the principal all asked questions. The principal asked me one question, I answered it, she said nothing, I asked, "Does that make sense?" and she had another clarifying question, which I answered and we went on. But when I asked that question, Michael, sitting beside me, flinched as if I had slapped him. I didn't ask any more questions and went on to the next thing on the agenda. (One of the people from the mental health agency sent me a message later, complimenting me and saying it was the best presentation of data like that he had ever seen - and he has been in this field for at least 15 years). So at the meeting with Becky yesterday, he complained about the way I handled that aspect of the meeting, complaining that I had asked no questions to see if the parents were following, and that Parent 2 understood nothing I had said. He said this again in different words and then went on to talk about Parent 1 not processing the information, saying her name several times. I said something about Parent 1, since he had switched from talking about Parent 2 to Parent 1. He erupted and said, "Why are you talking about Parent 1? You have worked with this family- don't you know that Parent 1 doesn't process anything? I am talking about Parent 2!" (Actually I don't really know these people; I had only once before met them and noticed that Parent 1 was totally silent. Someone had told me "Parent 1" doesn't process" (whatever that means). So then Michael told me (at the meeting with Becky (after talking about this), "you don't know anything about reading body language or you would have asked Parent 2 some questions to see if she was following what you were saying. And I repeated the entire conversation for Becky's benefit about how he had told me not to ask any questions other than "Are there any questions?" at the very end. He also took my spreadsheet to task, asking me to re-arrange this for his purposes. This is a spreadsheet that I have carefully designed over the years so that all of the data I need for my job shows up on one page (and anything else is off to the side). But I print the first page and carry it with me everywhere. He had asked me to add some stuff and I put it on the side (second page). He wanted me to add something else, and he wanted me to put all of that in the middle so that I wouldn't be able to see all if my needed data on one page, but it would be easier for me. I said no, that would mess me up. There are two dates that I carefully track together; the timing of these dates together has a lot of legal implications related to timelines, and I have them right next to them so I can see if that is on track at a glance. He wanted me to put some other date of something else in the middle of those dates. I told him I double fit it in next to the second date, but not in the middle. He argued about this and Becky asked me about why I wouldn't just put it in the middle. I pointed out that this is my own personal spreadsheet for organizing my own work and that stuffing that date in where he wanted it would trip me up every time I looked at it. He finally agreed to allow me his date column next to these two columns and not in the middle. Has my job become one of creating spreadsheets and collecting information for Michael of am I still a school psychologist? The micromanagement at this petty and inappropriate level is crazy. If feels the same as if he had borrowed my cell phone once to make a call and then insisted that I rearrange the layout so that it would be easier for him the next time he wanted to borrow my phone...It is my own personal organizational tool and he has decided that because I have shared it with him I have to make it what he wants. He also objected to my agenda. Before he told me it was excellent. It has the agenda for MET-1 meetings and MET-2 meetings on one page. I used to have them on separate pages, but had decided that it was simpler to combine it onto one page. HE had told me that the single page was excellent. Now he tells me that this really needs to be on two separate pages.

I've got my little recorder up and running and that's good, although I'm not sure what good it will do me. I had an interesting talk with a very experienced special education director that I very much like and trust. I would say that for the most part, very little of what she had to say was of any comfort at all, and unfortunately, I think she is probably spot on, at least in the world of education. If someone doesn't like me, they can go tattle/complain/make up stuff/whatever about me or anyone else they don't like, and whomever they tell all this b.s. to can just take their word for it and punish me accordingly without my ever knowing what was said, who said it, or what was the subject matter. It is then incumbent upon me to figure out who has a beef with me (by e.s.p. and without asking them) and repair my relationship with this person, who may be an extremely fragile psychotic and personality disordered person for all I know, as well as a person to whom I have done nothing as far as any reasonable person would ever think. She says that is what Human Resource law is like because of harassment issues. It's really crazy. I have this teacher Cindy who really has been harassing me with all of her tattling and making up stuff and being hostile to me, while I was nice to her and helped her in any way I could in her new career, but because she has extreme fragility and felt wounded and exposed by the fact that she knew very little in her first job in her new career, she is the protected victim and I am on an improvement plan so that I can learn to stop doing things I was never doing in the first place. Huh. Well, she is moving to another part of the state and we'll see what happens next. At least she won't be there next year. And as for me, somehow I need to focus on my work, get it done, and see what happens. I have good skills and will be working somewhere next year...

The more I think about this and talk to other people, the more I think he really does have dementia. Here is this man who had a stellar career who writes at a level that would not pass muster at a good high school as a freshman, and the way he talks is worse. He has totally co-opted Suellen from being the Special Education coordinator to being his personal assistant. I think it's because he cannot function without her. It seems that she helps him write and think and interprets for him when she needs to when he talks. When he goes to a meeting, he says very little and doesn't always follow what's going on. I have seen him do simple presentations and even though someone was helping him, he still got things all scrambled up so that it didn't make sense. He reminds me of the father of one of my best friends, Herb, who had been about the most brilliant person I ever knew, and being aware of how much he lost, he just became very quiet. He is referred to as a "national expert" and has had a career at that level, until recently. I think he is hiding here and thought he could get away with two or three more years before retiring. He is 64, and if he could get another year or two, he would be in better shape for retirement. I'm thinking he thought no one would notice his declining cognitive functioning in podunkville. Meanwhile, the other psychologist thinks he is unraveling in some way and is lashing out all over the place, with me as his apparent number one - but not only - target.

His direct supervisor is the superintendent. Human Resources would be the only other avenue inside the district. This is really getting to me. The whole document (Improvement Plan) is very poorly written; it is vague, has poor grammar, mixes things up, and mixes up terminology that he should know as well as anyone around. He also has an outline with bullet points that is so disorganized it is rather astonishing. He uses comments like "See prior bullet" and the two are unrelated. He also talks like that, going in circles, backtracking, and contradicting himself. Then he gets angry that we are going in a circle and not going anywhere. He should have had someone edit it for him so that it made sense, just like how in our last meeting he had his assistant/secretary come in and interpret for him so that she could explain what he was trying to say. She told me about four months ago that one had to be really careful listening to him because he leaves out parts that he thinks he said, and therefore what he actually said makes no sense. A close friend who is a psychiatrist told me that based on what I had said about him, she thought he sounds like he has early signs of dementia. I think she's probably right... This is a man who has had a top level career who is saying totally crazy things. He told me not to say "does that make sense?" because that means the same as "do you understand?", which is the same as telling the other person that they are stupid. I told him that they are opposites because if I say "does that make sense?" that puts the onus on me...perhaps I have not been clear or have garbled things in some way. He insisted that I was totally wrong. He also has spoken with derision of my using active listening and reflective listening. And when I told him that it was not insubordination to fail to do things that were unreasonable, impossible, or illegal, he yelled back at me, "Oh yes that is insubordination!" Another friend suggested that perhaps he is trying to trap me into doing something that is illegal...

I looked up the EEOC online, and it seems to apply mostly to discriminatory abuse...having a bully boss apparently seems to be just an unfortunate situation but not a legal problem. I'm not sure that it applies. I think a lot of it is playing favorites. He likes people who are inadequate but obsequious and tries hard to keep them. My last bully boss had the same preferences. Since I am neither, it leaves me out in the cold. I suppose those would be the preferences of a very insecure person - someone who doesn't threaten them and good at boot-licking. In contrast, I am smart and competent, and not given to false flattery or sycophancy. Education was probably a poor choice for me. Mediocrity really rules the scene. And I suppose for a man like Michael, I suppose these people make him feel smart. I am not sure that anything is going to really help much here because the bottom line is that he is very insecure and finds me threatening. That is not likely to change. I think I have to survive the rest of the school year and figure out where to go next... I remember my dad saying that when he got to be retirement age, he was going to dye his hair and go into a new field. Unfortunately, he got Parkinson's and none of that panned out. By the time he was out here and declining he no longer remembered that when I asked him. I wonder why he was thinking that when he was mid career. He must have been bored. I wonder what he would have done...

I don't know about the EEOC. I'll look into it, and also into getting an appropriate recording device. As to recording conversations, in Arizona it is a "One Party" state. If one person knows it is being recorded, such as the person doing the recording, it is ok. I suppose the truth is that it has become a hostile work environment. He has told me that "every single teacher" in all three of my schools has complained about me. He has stated that "every staff" has complained about me in confidence and he will not tell me who said anything or what they said. He told me that if he asks me to do something that is illegal, impossible, or unreasonable, it is insubordination if I don't do it. He also told me that if my work is above the level of the other school psychologist and I do things more thoroughly and on a shorter timeline than she, he can arbitrarily add higher levels than the expectations for her and it is ok because "she is not on an improvement plan - only you are". I guess I need to start recording these things, and to make a list of things I need to bring up again so that I can get him to respond to them when I am recording him. Sigh...

I think you are right. Unfortunately, the other psychologist has told me that the person in Human resources who would do this is not anywhere near smart enough to help with this, or even find her way through this. When I learned who this HR person is, I agreed. She looks very average and I think the subtitles of this are way over her head. And the only other person would be the superintendent, and that would make him furious. During our last bout (Thursday), he pulled in Suellen, the SpEd coordinator who has come to be his assistant rather than doing what had formerly been her job, to "mediate" as he put it. She was reluctant, but agreed, and it was really helpful. She told me when I had a problem with him in the fall that I should listen to him carefully because he frequently leaves out important pieces as he talks and you can't understand what he says without pointing that out and getting him to go back and fill them in. I realized when I woke up Friday morning that this is the key - or at least one of them. When he talks I think he is (like most people) mainly aware of what is going on inside his own head. He remembers what he was thinking and figures that is what he said and that one thought/sentence logically followed the other, like a sting of lights in rope lighting, all in a logical row. Unfortunately, that is not the case. When I listen to him talk, I listen like an attorney in a courtroom to every little detail of every thing he says because I really want to understand what he is saying to me. But when I listen to him it is like looking at fireflies that are moving all over the place and sometimes even disappearing and reappearing. He contradicts himself and changes nuances and details of what he is saying as he goes. This is very hard to follow, as hard as I try. I am sure that I look confused and he goes into a frustrated rage as I become increasingly terrified. Suellen has a lot of experience in finding meaning in what he says and interpreting the essence of what he is saying. Also, when she was there, I said some things like "In meeting one you said do one thing. In meeting two I said can I do another thing instead, and you said yes. In the third meeting you said you wanted both things and some other things as well. Also you have asked me to do some other things that were not part of the original plan that will make it virtually impossible for me to do my job. I don't understand how I can do all of that and not get horrible behind." With her there, he agreed to go back to what he had started with. We ended up with a plan for the following week that is entirely doable. I brought up the idea that the plan might be rewritten so that it is clear, concrete, and specific - something that a person could achieve and it would be clear that they had in fact been successful. I also mentioned that what I knew of improvement plans is that it was done after ordinary communication, and after which normal attempts to get a change had failed. This was not true. That all made him furious. The truth is that he has written a plan that was not cold correctly in any way, he adds to it with any new information, he actually goes out trolling for more confidential input, and it is so vague he things anything related to communication is part of the plan because the word "communication" was in the original wording. I have also realized that he is very susceptible to sycophants and obsequiousness. Cindy the SpEd teacher as well as Becca that I had trouble with earlier in the year are very much like this and he eats it up. Loves them. That item about not demeaning people should have read, "Cindy does not like Laura and the fact that a school psychologist with extensive experience knows more than a brand new SpEd teacher makes Cindy feel really bad. This goal will be met when Cindy has decided she likes Laura and complains about her once a month or less, instead of almost daily." Then it would have been clear, concrete, specific, and quantifiable. So he is always going to side with Cindy and hold all of her comments in confidence. I reviewed my behaviors with Cindy (all that I knew of) one by one, because he had seem me do similar things, or the same thing, over and over. I asked him if he thought there was anything wrong with any of these things when he saw them. He said "no, of course not". I asked him, so what is wrong with them and they are on my improvement plan as "Don't demean staff...). He said, "Well, she didn't like it."

I simply can't see any way to get through this. Every time we have a meeting about my improvement plan he has changed and added to it. He tells me things that are totally conflicting with other statements from other meetings and when I ask him about this he gets really angry. He told me to set up a "ducks in a row meeting" between yesterday's meeting and our next meeting. This is a little problematic because Thursday (yesterday) and Friday are parent-teacher meetings all day, Fri & Sat are a weekend, and Monday is a holiday. We meet mid-day next Tuesday. No one could hold a meeting on any of those those days! He told me at meeting one that every single teacher at all three schools where I work had complained about me. Yesterday he told me that virtually all of the staff have found me to be unworkable and not a team player. He said had complaints from all of them but he would not tell me who any of them were or what they had said because that had all been said in confidence. Nevertheless I am supposed to work out these mystery issues with unnamed people. He told me that all I do is is say negative things about other people. I have mentioned some problems/omissions with previous reports I was working from, in the context of apologizing to current teams about why the information had to be collected currently. The other school psychologist told me that Michael seems to find someone to target every year and this year it's me. Last year it was the person I replaced. I have been told that she had "a really rough year".

I know that there is other work and I will be able to get work elsewhere - probably a higher rate, fewer hours, and much less abuse. I suppose there is just something really awful about being verbally abused and yelled at irrationally. Is that really ok? A supervisor has the legal right to verbally abuse staff in an irrational way and if you protest, it's insubordination?

No, that's not it - I don't do well with being used as a whipping post and I don't take it lying down. If someone says something absolutely crazy to me I will say it's crazy, of at least look like I think it's crazy. Michael and I had another meeting today and he spent a good part of the hour and a half ranting and yelling at me. He not only doesn't listen to me; he doesn't listen to himself. He rambles around from one thing to another between one sentence to another, without realizing that he is changing the subject/context or even reversing his position as he goes. He is just a nightmare. Today he pulled Suellen in to help mediate or translate or something. At times she looked rather horrified at what was going on, but she tried to help out, and I think her presence was helpful. He brought her in because he was asking me to create a database on a spreadsheet. She was able to get him to see that most of what he was looking for was already on the spreadsheet I have been presenting him every time I see him, and to get him to agree that if I added three columns to my spreadsheet, that would answer his questions. Nevertheless, we got stuck. He was basically telling me that I was being insubordinate. I told him that if a person will not do something that was unreasonable, impossible or illegal, that is not insubordination. He said that it absolutely is insubordinate to refuse to do the unreasonable, impossible or illegal. It is really terrifying to have one's boss rant and rage about things one cannot fix. He was enraged because a teacher failed to get information to me early this week. The other teacher, who is in PHX and writing the IEP did not get the information in time to do her part of the meeting. The first teacher should have gotten it to me so I could put it in the online program where the second teacher could see it - or put it in herself. The second teacher was upset because she didn't get the information in time and canceled the meeting. The first teacher was in Argentina from Dec 22 until Feb 7 because her mother is gravely ill. When she finally came back she was really in a crunch to get on top of things, and so she did not get this information to the second teacher (or to me to get it to the second teacher). Michael lost his temper and yelled at me as I asked him how was I supposed to get this information from a woman in Argentina. You can't even send text messages to there. I tried, but didn't hear back from her until she was in Canada, where she was re-routed on the way back. So Michael demanded to know why I didn't get a third teacher involved and get her to tell me the information that as far as I knew only the first teacher knew. By the way, the third teacher, who sees this kid only for math and hence only had a fraction of what the second teacher wanted, is the teacher who has complained about me constantly all school year. Last week he told me to tell some principal that she had to get some teacher (a different one) to get me thin information that I need in time for the meetings - he said, "You should tell her (the principal) that you are on an improvement plan and your butt is on the line - that you are going to lose your job" if this teacher does not get her stuff to you." Today he was raging at me because I had talked to several teachers about being on an improvement plan and told me that I had no business talking to teachers or anyone else about this. Crazy...

I have a difficult job that is demanding and at a large volume that must be done with a high degree of accuracy in a constantly changing environment. Not only that, as another school psych put it, we are always a lone wolf. Everyone else falls into natural teams except us. If the SpEd director backs us up we are ok; if they don't, we are toast. This is partly because people just love to blame everything on the school psychologist. Just yesterday we had a meeting about a child who had moved very frequently and we were trying desperately to have a meeting to determine her eligible and give her an IEP, and the mother didn't show up in person or by phone. I suggested that we should have the meeting anyway and that I would chase the woman all over town if I had to and get her to sign. The speech path commented that if we didn't get the signature it would be like the meeting never happened. The get ed teacher got up to leave, turning on me angrily about having a meeting that would result in "it never happened" and she had work to do. Fortunately, the whole team heard these words came out of someone else's mouth and not mine, and I was volunteering to spend my day finding her so that this would all work out and her student would get the help the teacher was desperately trying to get her. But her first response was to not really listen and get angry at the school psych. It really makes me angry... I think that is probably the thing that scares me most - my own justifiable anger.

Thanks to both of you - I really appreciate the support. I went into this field because I wanted to help kids, and I wanted this particular job because I didn't want to keep driving such distances that could endanger my life. I especially wanted to help low functioning kids to end up with jobs and not in prison. I also wanted to help gifted kids find a path to success even when the systems were paralyzing them with boredom by forcing them to complete tasks that were much too low for them before being given appropriate work. So many of the most brilliant minds we have do not even finish high school because they find themselves thwarted and turned away from what would challenge them. I am not sure I am helping either of these groups, especially the latter group, because the schools give the same answers they did when I was a kid. They didn't have gifted programs then, much less highly gifted programs, or I would have been in one instead of being told I was lazy. I have a pair of siblings right now that I am trying very hard to help - both gifted and emotionally scarred by abuse. I started with the girl...my boss wanted me to approach the evaluation in a way that I felt was absolutely inappropriate (not even do an IQ test, but to a Functional Behavior Assessment to determine why she was acting like she did) I talked the team into taking my advice and she in fact has a very high IQ and PTSD. Her brother is very much the same and it has been been easier to get him going on an appropriate assessment path without adversity. That's why I'm there is so that I can help those kids. A lot of them any school psych could do about the same thing for, but some of them I might be able to help in a way that no one else could due to my skills, experience, and personality being what they are. That's why I am there...to contribute all that I can...

When he was alive, he seemed overwhelmed by my stories about crazy irrational stories about adult professionals at work that did not actually resemble adults or professionals. He commented over and over that he never had anyone act like that in the business environments in which he worked. He used to talk about the boy scout law a lot, and that if it was followed carefully it would lead to success in life. Now what I hear him saying is more like "just keep your head down and do your job", "focus on what really matters", and the thing he always said when he was alive and I told him about being criticized; "well, I think you're wonderful!" The part that worries me the most is that Michael's crazy stuff (and everyone else's) is that it comes out of left field, is not true, is frequently abusive/demeaning, and is to be taken as if it were rational. Like that teacher who figures that she doesn't have to listen to what I am saying but only has to listen for a brief pause and then it's ok for her to seize the conversation. And this is a SpEd teacher! Does she think it's ok to do that to children? All this while, she has been complaining about me while I have been helping her to get her feet under her in her new profession in any way I can. Several have told me that I should stop helping her. I don't seem to be able to stop helping her. That seems kind of crazy on my part, but the truth is that this is a team team team environment, and helping her by giving her correct information will eventually help us all avoid problems and it could even save my own neck. Also, as she learns the ropes, she is offering help to me...yesterday we scheduled a MET-2 meeting at the MET-1 meeting. When it was over she offered to create the Meeting Notice for the MET-2 meeting and have me check it for accuracy before it went out. And this was after I sent her a brief litany in an email a few hours before that MET-1 meeting with a list of errors she had made, one of which was a parent's report of her calling to tell the parent her predetermination of the determination of what would happen at the meeting - a really big illegal no-no - and I cc'd this email to principal, SpEd director, etc. I thought she would be ready to cut my head off when she saw me at the meeting, but she was sweet as pie...

I feel demoralized...no, that's not it. I am afraid. Afraid of going to work and being crushed. When I began this job I was so excited every morning and would jump out of bed and scurry around getting ready to do the best I could in every way. Now I feel uncertain and afraid. I have fears of being eaten alive at work and hope they're irrational. I wish I didn't care but I do. I want to do well at work, but if my boss is bent on putting me in a bad light he will. I think it comes down to what everyone has told me...it's a lose-lose situation that I am in. I have fear and trepidation about even leaving my house to go to work... I sure miss my dad. He always had my back and was always on my side no matter what was going on.

I had a conversation today with that teacher Cindy, the one I had all of the problems with in the fall and the reason I have on my "Improvement Plan" to "Not demean" people. We were talking about this and that and I was helping her again, by explaining how to figure out how to line up your meetings ahead in such a way that you don't create extra work by having to do things twice. This was not done by the staff last year, which messed all of us up. And somehow in this I decided to tell her that her complaints against me had really caused me a lot of trouble. Maybe that was a mistake. She was totally nonplused to hear that I was in trouble. I guess she feels I deserve it. And then she told me the most egregious thing I had done to her. It was astonishing! In the fall, we had quite a number of conversations that included her rather abruptly interrupting me when I had barely begun to speak, either to argue with what she imagined I would say next or simply change the sentence. When I objected to her doing this to me, and how frustrating I found it to have to begin another conversation to get to the point I had begun trying to make, she pointed out that in my speech there are quite a few brief little pauses, and whenever she heard one she would assume I was finished speaking even if I was obviously mid sentence or mid-thought. (obviously, she was not listening but simply waiting for a pause so she could jump in). I didn't think I should have to have explained myself, but I said that when I was a child and young person, I had a profound speech impediment and stammered terribly; I would just freeze and be unable to complete a sentence. I was very quiet and shy, and seldom even attempted joining in any conversations because I would only freeze and be cut off. It was terribly painful and frustrating and it made any social or even work functioning very difficult because really, I could hardly talk in many situations. Also, people would make fun of me and mock my speech. But when I was in my late twenties, I endeavored to fix this situation myself. I just forced myself to keep talking even if it was a forced ramble - anything to keep words coming out of my mouth. It worked - for most situations. But when I got my MSW, I had to take it to a much higher level and be able to continue a stream of conversation while using professional vocabulary and sophisticated thoughts, and responding to those of others. Throughout my life people who got to know me well enough to comment on something on that would ask about the pauses, and I would explain. They generally said that they thought it was something like that and that they had just tried to be patient, figuring that I would finish eventually. But not Cindy. When I told her about all of this, she made her belief clear that if I paused, I had effectively surrendered the floor and it was her turn. If I tried to continue I was being rude to her. I told her that I was not asking her for any special favors or accommodations - only the common courtesy that anyone should show to another - if she would listen to the other person. she would know when they were done speaking. She said no, she would not do this, but would continue to talk over me when there was any pause. So today, she told me that this was the terrible thing that I had done to her - that I thought I should be able to continue to speak after a pause that was about the length of a breath. Apparently she did find it to me demeaning that she had to listen to me speak and not just wait for a pause and jump in. And this is a special ed teacher, who thinks she is going to do a fabulous job of working with children with disabilities! On the plus side, she said that she was going to be working elsewhere next school year. Someone told me this yesterday - that she was going to join her husband working on the reservation next year -Navajo or Hopi, I don't know which...but they sure won't like that!

Thanks! I feel like I am being verbally beaten at work, most particularly when I have any contact with my boss, the person who is responsible for the education of the absolute most vulnerable children we have - those with disabilities. I dread going to work; at the beginning of the year I would jump out of bed and go skipping out the door. I could make more money in less time doing contract work as I did before - and have much less stress. But I wouldn't be putting time into the state retirement and wouldn't have good health insurance. Another problem of this created chaos is that I am upset and distracted at work, and to do the detailed kind or work that I do, a calm quiet environment in which to work is critical. I am finding that I am making more mistakes, getting less done, and having more trouble tracking things. I also need time to attend to the things Michael wants me to do to track things for him. And when I asked him Monday if it was ok for me to get behind on my real job because I was working on gathering data on my work for him, he wasn't sure. And most of the original problem was that I got behind on my real job because of the chaos he created by allowing the start of the work year to be delayed 6 weeks because he took over the SpEd coordinator as his personal assistant! He may have some distorted priorities...

Jess, I am so sorry to hear this. SO many cats get into these kind of predicaments, and it is so heart-wrenching. Not your fault, but a possible consequence of living with a small vulnerable animal. There are SO many things that can happen to cats. My cat is so beloved to me, it is hard to fathom how awful it would be to lose her like that. For her, it would probably never be the clothes drier because I have a stacked washer/drier unit. She would have to jump about five feet up, and I have only once seen her jump higher than a chair. But she is a therapy cat and I take her in the car to visit people in nursing homes, schools, and other facilities. She is exposed to more dangers just from being out and about, even on a harness/leash and with my carrying her and watching her vigilantly. The world is unpredictable and so is she. Once her tail got caught in the car door and it was horrific! I was squatting with her on the ground next to the car, reopened the door to grab something, and pushed it closed. Just pushed it a little - not swung like one usually swings a car door. Meanwhile she happened to whip her tail around and it was caught in the door. Fortunately, it was just squeezed between the soft seals around the door, but she sure did scream, and I just sat on the ground next to the car clutching her and sobbing for awhile. She was fine and I am really really careful about all doors. I really enjoy sharing her with people who need a cat's company, but what if...? As Shashau said, : We all try so hard to protect these small precious animals we share our hearts and lives with, and I think they try too. I am very clumsy, and if Lena was as slow-footed as I am, we would have had a LOT of bad accidents, but when I start to trip, she is a long ways away by the time my stumble is over and I am so grateful for her lightning fast reflexes. But so many things can happen anyway. I am so sorry you lost your pet and that you are reliving it like this. I think that will get better, like any kind or aspect of grief. It just gets less painful over some time, even though your heart may always hurt. Just not as much. In the beginning after any kind of loss I think we all go through a lot of "what-if's" and ruminating over the last details wishing we could stop them. I think it's a phase. It won't always be so bad...