This is what I felt like telling someone the other day. Before you think I'm a terrible person, hear me out. . .
The team of teachers I teaches with was sitting at lunch catching our breath for the first time since the kids came back from exploration classes that morning. There was a substitute there for a teacher on our hallway. She found out last week that I was pregnant, so she kindly asked me how I was feeling. She then proceeded to tell me about someone she knew who randomly lost her baby at 5 months. She then went into the details of how upset this woman and her husband were (ya think?!?) and how bad she felt for them (I should hope so!). This was about the moment I wished I could say, "just stop talking, please" but I kindly refrained.
You may think I'm a horrible person for wanting to shut her down when she was telling a story, but I'm sticking to my guns here. What first-time preggers woman wants to hear that when she is already nervous enough?!? None! The worst part is that she just kept going. I politely tried to steer the conversation in a different direction, but she didn't take the hint. Needless to say it was a painful few minutes. I tried not to think much more about it, or let it bother me, but that attempt was pointless. It ended up weighing on me the rest of the day, and truthfully it still is.
Have any of y'all ever been in a situation like that? Any of you brave enough to speak up and ask them to stop?? I have a feeling I'm going to need to toughen up in these next six months otherwise I'm going to hear a lot of stories and advice I wasn't prepared for!
Ugh. How awful. I'm so sorry she didn't get the hint. I hope this doesn't sound bad, but I have found that a lot of substitutes are like that. When I was on a cart one year, I was teaching in a room where a sub was. I was teaching the male reproductive system, and he started to tell my class about HIS prostate exam. It was so awful. My poor kids kept looking at me like "Please make him stop."
ReplyDeleteAugh some people are so dumb. I had something similar (well kind of...but not really--ha) It was one of my patients--she's 37 weeks preggo. My coworker kept going on and on and ON about how HUGE she was. I finally cut her off and told her enough...in which she replied, "Well she is!" But I asked her what pregnant woman really wants to hear that and she walked away. I mean, honestly...people just don't think before they speak.
ReplyDeleteSheesh, that's ridiculous. Especially since she's a sub so she SHOULD be trying to get brownie points with all the teachers and you. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. You would think that people would have the common sense to not talk about sensitive stuff like that.
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