Handle with Care

I was just going through an old file, deleting stuff I don't need any more and came across this photo that I took a couple of years ago. I don't know whether it was the delivery company or the stewards here at school who caused my clearly fragile parcel to arrive in this state, but it made me laugh (once I'd checked that nothing was actually broken!).

Return to Work interview - the fallout

Well it wasn't exactly a simple box-ticking exercise yesterday.

Apparently I have had too many days off sick and now I'm going to start losing pay if I am ill again. Initially HR reckoned that I had taken 27 days sick this year. I looked back through all my e-mails and could only find 20, which of course includes 17 days signed off by the hospital because I broke my arm and couldn't work. HR however are counting an overall 12 month period, so the stomach bug I had last November counts, as does the streaming cold I had in October. I still couldn't get it to 27 days, until I noticed that they'd counted 4 days in January before term started, when I wouldn't have been at work anyway! I got them to discount those days but they aren't prepared to budge on the rest.

What does this mean? Well, basically I can't afford to be ill again until mid January. Or alternatively, I can be ill but I have to come to work and infect everyone else regardless of whether I am suffering with a streaming nose, projectile vomiting or bubonic plague. I'm sure that will make everyone very happy - NOT!!

Told my HoD all this when I got to work this morning and he was not amused. Yesterday he had a meeting with the Head to discuss the past year in Physics, and apparently I came in for a lot of praise for all the stuff that I do for the department above and beyond my job description. So while the Head thinks I'm doing a great job, HR think I'm slacking. Nice!

HoD has told me to start logging all my hours so we can prove the extras that I do, and has also told me that if HR carry on being obnoxious, he'll just go to the Head. It's good to know that someone's got my back. I may grumble about the guy, but I have a really great HoD!

Return to Work interview

Back in January, I had to take a month off work thanks to a broken and dislocated bone in my arm. When I got back something was vaguely mentioned about needing to give me a 'Return to Work' interview to make sure I was ok to do my job and assess whether I needed any extra support. This never actually happened and now, 9 months down the line, I'm pretty much healed although still with reduced mobility and some pain.

11 days ago I took a day off because I woke up with a killer migraine - nausea, visual disturbances, the works! Apparently a day off for a migraine is more important than a month off with a broken arm because I've just been informed that my absence means I have to have a meeting with the Head of Science this afternoon to fill in the return to work form.
Not entirely sure what this is meant to achieve. Sometimes I get migraines. Nothing the school, or I, can do is likely to change this fact. It's been this way for 20 years or more.
Sounds like an HR box-ticking exercise to me!

Interesting stuff!

Faster than light neutrinos

Wish I was going on the CERN trip this year!

Friday Funny

xkcd

Is that my job?

Every day I get asked to do a wide variety of stuff, some of which is very clearly a part of my job, but some of which really isn't. So, I present:

Stuff that's my job

• Preparing equipment for practical physics lessons and ensuring that it's in the right room at the right time.
• Repairing any bits of equipment which get broken. (Mainly changing batteries and fuses, sometimes a bit of soldering)
• Sourcing new equipment and dealing with ordering.
• Managing the budget
• Trialling new experiments eg ISA practicals
• Helping out in the lab during practicals
• Demoing experiments during lessons
• First Aid

Stuff that's not my job, but which I still get asked to do

• Booking plane tickets
• Invigilating exams when they can't find anyone else
• Contacting kids' parents
• Entering exam results onto the system
• Photocopying
• Setting work when a teacher is away but hasn't sorted out any cover
• Taking phone messages from my HoD's wife

And today's prize example - find out where the course is which my HoD is supposed to be on. Seiously, he called me at 9.15 to ask me to log on to his e-mails and check the venue for his course because he'd forgotten to write it down. Sometimes I despair.

Visitor from Rome, part 2

As expected, Brother Guy's lecture last night was awesome.

He talked about ideas in astronomy that were almost right, but ultimately ended up being totally wrong. He covered Ptolemy, Copernicus, my favourite astronomer Tycho Brahe and even his own master thesis from 1975 which was a study of Jupiter's moon Europa.

He's a really interesting and entertaining speaker and I think the students got a lot out of it.

A visit from Rome

Brother Guy has come to visit the school for a few days and is giving a lecture tonight on astronomy which should be really good.

I should mention at this point that I am not religious. I've no problem with people who want to believe in God, but personally I don't.
That being said, I'm finding it hard to understand the fuss everyone is making. The school chaplain is practically soiling his cassock with excitement that we've got a visitor from the Vatican and teachers are planning 'special' lessons for Br Guy to watch.

Why??

Ok, so he's a Jesuit who works for the Vatican, but ultimately he's a scientist and a really nice bloke. When we met him in Rome back in april he was great fun to spend time with and remarkably unpreachy. The way everyone is carrying on, you'd think that God himself had climbed down off his magic cloud to pay us a visit, or at the very least that the Pope had decided to pop in..

Never mind, they'll get over it. In the meantime I am really looking forward to tonight's lecture. :)

Friday Funny

Of course it's from xkcd

Overcrowding

Our school is flourishing, which in the current economic climate was by no means guaranteed. However, this does have a downside. In order to make as much money as possible we take on more students, but I get the impression that no one stopped to think about whether we could actually fit them in!

One of my labs is tiny and can just seat 20. There's not enough room for them to do practical, but we can at least get bums on seats and teach them stuff. Unfortunately we have a couple of classes this year with 22 students. You see the problem? We managed to get hold of a couple of folding desks and some old chairs and shoe-horned them in, so the lab is crammed full of kids. I also had to order more text books once I saw the set lists, but I got enough and now each kid has a book, a seat and a desk.

It appears though that biology didn't take action in quite the same way we did.

All the biology teachers are away on a field trip today, and one of the new year 9 sets was due to have their first biology lesson this morning. I've just spoken to the teacher who covered the lesson, and he was not impressed! There was a seating plan, showing where each of the 22 kids should be seated in the lab, but, not only did 2 of the seats not exist, the bio teacher knew they didn't because he had written no seat on the plan.
Didn't think to try and obtain said seats then mate?

Makes my department actually look organised!

Am I a travel agent?

I currently have a small tower on my desk, composed of kids' passports. I've got British, Nigerian, German, Hong Kong and even Kazakhstan!

'But why?', I hear you cry.

Well, the annual trip to CERN is only a couple of months away and it's time to book flights. More specifically, it's time for ME to book flights. I always get lumbered with this job and this time round I'm not even going on the trip.

Freebie

Want a FREE poster about the maths of engineering?

Just click HERE and fill in the form. :)

Gold Leaf Electroscope

Got my Gold Leaf Electroscopes out this morning, ready for a lesson, only to discover that 4 of them have no gold leaf. Not a problem - I quite like fitting new gold leaf. It's a bit fiddly but not difficult.

Here is my 'how to' guide to fitting gold leaf.

Disclaimer - this is not the only way, probably not even the best way. It's just my way.

Remove any traces of old gold leaf or adhesive from the stem of the electroscope and clean off any grease with a little ethanol.

With the gold leaf (actually it's an alloy called dutch metal) between 2 thin pieces of paper, cut a strip 40mm by 5mm.

Cut a thin strip of sellotape and stick it to the top end of the gold leaf  then carefully position onto the stem. Reassemble electroscope and admire your handywork!

There's a guide here on the lovely TechKnow website which shows a different way to attach the gold leaf, using spit. I've not tried it, but it may be worth a try!

New Chair!

My department have got me a new chair. This is very exciting!

I used to sit on this, which was hard and uncomfortable and gave me backache, not to mention a numb backside.

But now I have this, which is comfy and soft, plus I can twirl around on it. Unfortunately it is slightly too low for my desk, but frankly I don't care.

I have a comfy chair! Yay!