Frustration

So, I work at a daycare. It's an okay daycare - there are better ones, and there are worse ones. The staff here cares about the kids and works well with them.

I'm the administrative assistant here, but I also work with the kids on phonics. I started out excited about it, but I am not anymore, and the reason is very simple:

I am not a good teacher.

Now, some people who know my personality would see this as strange, because I love learning and I love sharing knowledge with other people - especially children. However, this works in a one-on-one setting. I am an excellent tutor. I have the attention span of a Fig Newton, though, and that means that, in a room full of under-fives, there is always at least one who can successfully derail me, and usually there are two to three who are generally disruptive, which puts me thoroughly out of sorts for a class in general and makes me less patient with the kids who are not necessarily being disruptive, but are just being kids.

Combine that with the fact that I really have no training in this, and the kids, while learning, are not learning as much as they could. They are very smart, and they like learning, but I really have no idea what the hell I'm doing, and this is very different from sitting down one of my kids in a bathtub and showing them the letters and telling them the sounds they make.

To put it bluntly, I'm depressed and frustrated, because I think the actual classroom teacher would do a much better job of this, and because I don't like doing things badly. The problem is that there is very little planning at this facility. We just kind of do stuff. Now, that kind of off-the-cuff thing works well in smaller settings, and it works well in certain ways, but it's starting to dawn on me that maybe placing the responsibility for teaching children to read in the hands of someone who is only qualified because they have small children with whom they have worked on the subject is perhaps not the best idea ever, because it doesn't take into account the personality requirements to teach a class of children, the necessity of a format (rather than just, do what you like), and other issues.

I want these kids to learn, and I really am not the person to do this (at least, not without some form of training and a curriculum that expands beyond worksheets printed out online). I'm frustrated.

There is also the issue of paychecks. There was a woman who worked here who stole a great deal of money from us, which resulted in paychecks being returned (my very first paycheck was returned, in fact). Since it came out that she had cleaned our clocks, I've been understanding of not being paid on time. I've been understanding of paychecks bouncing, and I know it's hard to straighten your finances out after that.

But my last paycheck bounced, I don't know when I'm getting paid for the 31st, my account has dropped into the negatives, and I am tired of this. I used to have an account that was in the red all the time because I spent money extremely irresponsibly in the Marines, but I have been in the black ever since getting out (even though I had to move back here to avoid getting into the same situation once). And now I'm in the red again. I'm not a person who cares remotely about money, but I do care about not being in debt, and I care about contributing to the household, and I can't right now and that itself pisses me off.

I'm not pissed at the management. I know they mean well, and they're doing the best they can do, but I'm just tired of this. The woman who was stealing was booted in August, and it's still not straight? I don't want to show up to work and do something that I suck at and that I don't enjoy (corralling a group of children, it turns out, is not my thing; I am better off in the office and dealing with the children for a limited amount of time a day) and then proceed to not get paid for it.

And I'm not the only one. I know people who can't make rent because of this, who can't pay their bills because they are not getting paid. We are, at the moment, working for free, and it's starting to look mutinous here. I'm not considering angrily not coming in, but I'm too tired to come in and not get paid for what I do; I could be spending this time at home with my daughter not getting paid.

And the answer, every time I ask about this kind of thing, is an I-don't-know, and I usually have to pass that down to the people below me in the daycare, which frustrates me because they deserve better, and so do I. I mean, bless them, I know they're trying, but, hell. I'm depressed and I don't want to come to work because it's pointless.

I really wish that I disliked my higher-ups enough to just walk out on the job, but I don't.

I don't know. I just don't know how much longer I can keep doing this, you know? Yesterday I didn't come in because of a rough cycle, and I would have come in to a job where I was getting paid consistently, but when I don't feel well and I don't know when I'm getting paid? Forget it; my ass is staying at home, cleaning the living room, and playing Lego Batman, because that'll do just as much good. I was tempted to do the same thing this morning, but I miss enough work as it is for my back and other problems.

And the employee who is upset about her bills hasn't showed up yet today, and showed up late yesterday.

Great.

My boss has talked to me about how she wants to train me to pretty much do the whole office thing, and the whole idea makes me cringe. I really don't want a managerial position in this madhouse. And she trusts me implicitly (she wants me to do payroll now), which scares me, because I don't want to be here, and I feel like, if I quit, it will be a betrayal of trust, especially as we get further down the line.

I am at a real loss here.