TOIL

Maybe I'm looking back at the past with those rose tinted specs that we all tend to wear but I'm sure when I first started work people knew how many hours they were expected to work and then they worked them.  If they needed to work extra they were asked to and then they were paid for it.  I've had lots of jobs, so I'm probably not just looking back at the one perfect job. When you went home that was it for the day.  You didn't check your e-mails or get a midnight text from your boss reminding you of a report that had to be written for the next day.  You didn't have a computer at home, so there was no working on that Powerpoint presentation until you found the font that conveyed exactly the right message.  Maybe teachers were always sitting up until the wee small hours marking books and cutting things out but I wasn't a teacher then, so I can't comment  But it's not just teachers that are working stupid hours now. I know that my sister works all day and then writes reports all evening and at weekends, my cousin works long into the evening and struggles to justify taking a weekend off from work and I have friends who answer e-mails at 3am.

Then there is this peculiar new phenomenon called 'time off in lieu' or 'T.O.I.L'.  It's a phrase that has always confused me.  Toil just sounds like more hard work not the rest you should be having because you've worked when you shouldn't have. It's a sneaky way for employers to get free work out of good natured people. Because most people have kind-of accidentally worked extra time it's difficult to measure what hours should be taken in lieu.  If you say, "I'll just take that report home and finish it while I'm watching Eastenders," is that time you should be banking?  And when you take work home to finish off do you spend more time on it than you should?  Do you take off the minute here and there that you spent putting a load of washing in the machine?


As my own worst enemy I don't add up the extra time that I do.  I don't count church services or concerts that I attend or time spent arranging music or editing tracks. I guess that many people would be having to take more time off than they were in work if they honestly counted the extra that they did.

The phrase, 'time off in lieu' has always amused me as well. Whenever anyone says they are taking time off in lieu I hear  "time off in the loo," and get a mental image that probably isn't appropriate. Toil is the beginning of toilet.

Today, I have had time off in loo, having spend much of the night suffering with a bit of a wobbly tummy.  This morning I decided to be honest (I don't suppose many teachers ever are) and take the day off to be on the safe side and have spent the day feeling guilty and a little bit of a fraud. It has been a very productive day though. I have finished the musical puppets for the EYFS teachers to use, arranged some music for the Flutti Tutti group, made a backing CD of Christmas songs for the choir performances.  practised the piano and recorded the accompaniment for our choir competition piece and studied some flute duets ready for a pupil who needs a change from their current pieces.

Maybe I need more days in the loo to get everything done.