Job Swap - Trading Jobs With My Wife For A Day.

My wife Anne, is a second grade teacher, she is a very good teacher in my biased opinion. I used to think teachers had it made. Summers off, Winter break, Spring break, not to mention the holidays. From time to time she will come home and tell me about her day or week. I can't imagine dealing with some of the problems she has to deal with on a daily basis.

My problems at work are usually pretty routine in comparison. I fix printers, install printers and deal with customers all day. Sometimes I will tell her about my day and she tells me how lucky I am to actually get a lunch break or to interact with adults.

I started thinking, what if we switched jobs for a day? She could go to work for me and I would substitute teach second graders for a day. Fun! So here is my totally fictitious job swap scenario:

My wife comes into work for me.

Anne arrives promptly at 7:55 am to begin her day. She sits down at my desk and tries to log in to my computer. Anne is not the most tech savvy person so after three failed log in attempts she has to call the help desk to reset her password.

Once the password problem is resolved the phone rings and she cheerily answers the phone.

Caller: This printer is jammed again, it's the third time this morning, can we get one that works good?

Anne (politely): Works well.

Caller: What?

Anne: A printer that works well. (The teacher emphasizes the well).

Caller: Whatever, could you please send some over to fix it?

Anne arrives at the scene of the offending printer to assess the problem. Twenty minutes later she locates the door to the printer and looks inside. She is approached by an irritated customer holding some papers: I have to get these scanned this morning! Anne replies in her courteous but stern teacher voice: Well you are going to have to be patient, you can't always have everything you want right when you want it. The rest of the day continues in this fashion. Very few printers are fixed but customers receive invaluable lessons on manners and patience.

I go to School

I arrive at school a little under dressed, but ready to teach. I sit down as the students start to come into the classroom. I start checking my email and espn.com to see who won the game last night. I should have been paying attention to these rascals in front of me. No one's in their seat, everyone's talking at once, and just what is that smell?

We begin with the lesson plans Anne put together for me yesterday. Teacher will instruct students on proper word blah blah blah..This is no fun at all, so I take a poll, who wants to go outside? All hands go up. We head outside and I start a kickball game. We must be having too much fun because I am called inside and instructed that recess is not until after lunch. Buzzkill.

I then notice the smartboard, today's version of a blackboard. Wow, this is really cool. The class and I watch Youtube videos and eat our lunch for the next few hours until I am escorted out of the school.

The End of A Long Day

Anne arrives home a little after five, she sits down and begins to tell me how rude adults are. I nod. She asks about my day at school. I tell her I got home a little early, the kids were great. We discuss dinner and both decide we will leave work at work for today. I am grateful that I'm not responsible for educating the future, Anne is happy she doesn't have to deal with irritated adults. Tomorrow will be a much better day..