Dirty secret about an industry that you have worked in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Nonsense like that, by the way, is why teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers.

I don't understand why you'd work at a preschool whose philosophy you didn't agree with. There are schools that aren't like this--

Because I like working with the children. Because I like some of my coworkers. Because I love my room. Because I get paid very well. Because of the health insurance. There are lots of reasons why people work in places whose philosophies they disagree with.

Also, I've worked in a number of preschools. The only ones I've worked in that didn't have an obsessive assessment culture are the ones that weren't part of the public school system, which meant the pay was very, very, very low. Been there, done that, not going back.

O.k. you might check off the box that a kid CAN hold a 3" ball with his/her non-dominate hand (without really knowing if that is true or not). But obviously you can't give every kid the exact same assessment. Do you ever check off the NO the kid CAN NOT hold a 3"ball box on a kid (without knowing if that is really true or not)?

I work at a small, cheap preschool in a church. I get paid crap, but I don't have to jump through all those hoops that you do. Those assessments are ridiculous!

[Anonymous]

My kids went to two different coop preschools that didn't do crazy assessments like this.

[Anonymous]

I've worked in excellent preschools for 15 years and think the PP's school--and her response to the assessment--both sound crappy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College professors are some of the least talented ego-inflated hacks around, administrators are evil, & HR is stupid.

But I don't think that's a dirty secret.

It's also not true. I did my PhD from Harvard. Only the best in my class (not me) had the chance to go on to faculty positions. One of them spent ten years as a postdoc. The ones who made it are some of the most brilliant people in the world and also the most dedicated. If they have an ego, it's because they have earned the right to.

In my field (in the humanities), the people who went onto tenure-track positions and now have tenure are very smart, but they are also politically savvy. This may be surprising given the stereotype of the absent-minded professor, but given how scarce the opportunity for life-time employment has become, the fact of the matter is that tenure-track positions go to those PhD students who know how to spin their research to fit the very few tenure-track positions available. They also know when and how to get their work published, and make the connections they need to in order to secure the external letters required for tenure approval from the deans/upper level administration.

I believe in the sciences that it is a slightly different game because there are so many more lucrative positions outside of academia that are an option. But in the humanities and some of the "softer" social sciences, the people who land tenure-track jobs have learned to play the game well in addition to having solid research. There are surely more "brilliant" PhD students who don't land tenure-track jobs, but due to their inability or unwillingness to play the game.

As a parent, the big dirty secret, if you want to call it even a secret, is that incentives are simply not aligned to encourage professors to spend a lot of time teaching undergraduates. You get tenure and raises for publishing, not teaching. You may get a good teacher, sure, but that is due to fortune, not because the university truly encourages it. If you want consistently excellent teaching, I always recommend the small liberal arts colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feds don't hire the best and brightest. They hire people who are willing to wait 3+ months after an interview for a job offer.

LOL, yup. It's also so freaking hard to get fired. Same for state government.

Yup. I worked at one government agency where they touted how we new hires were "the best and the brightest". Amusing because first, they had no idea that David Halberstam did not use that wording in a complementary matter (irony lost) and second, no way in hell were the best minds in America waiting 12 months for a start date - they had long since joined Goldman or McKinsey.

'

haha. I know exactly what you're talking about. Those people are definitely not "the best and the brightest."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feds don't hire the best and brightest. They hire people who are willing to wait 3+ months after an interview for a job offer.

LOL, yup. It's also so freaking hard to get fired. Same for state government.

Yup. I worked at one government agency where they touted how we new hires were "the best and the brightest". Amusing because first, they had no idea that David Halberstam did not use that wording in a complementary matter (irony lost) and second, no way in hell were the best minds in America waiting 12 months for a start date - they had long since joined Goldman or McKinsey.

'

haha. I know exactly what you're talking about. Those people are definitely not "the best and the brightest."

Depends on the agency. Some divisions of DOJ are extremely competitive and do get the creme de la creme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give me a break with the daycare stories. The teachers at our center send their own kids there. Explain that?

+1. Our center director and many of the teachers send their kids to our center. I check on the video feed often and have never once seen teachers eating the kids' food, hitting, falling down drunk on the playground, etc.

Same - and I drop in unannounced all the time, as do other parents. Zero issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sibley Drs, nurses, staff are gossips. It is not uncommon to hear Drs trash patients or their colleagues. Major unprofessional culture.

Oh, I can back this one up. It's part of why I avoided specific pediatricians when my kids needed one. Lots of gossip about the kids and their parents.

Yes. A relative works there and is a total busybody. Talks to me about work people and I don't even know who they are!

That would be HIPAA violation

Not exactly. In my case I'm referring to talking about non-patients. Seems the environment there tends toward a more chatty work culture.

Between medical "professionals", HIPAA is a joke.

Accurate.

They may not name them when talking about them, but it'll be "the holidays weren't kind of the patient in 7. She's up 12 lbs." "Someone else is going to have to do the blood draw on the patient in 3 because I can't stand her grandma perfume."

I have a good friend who is a therapist and she has the best stories. She doesn't name her patients to me (crazy mom, OCD cat dude, etc.) or our other friends to protect them, but she definitely spills the beans. OCD cat dude is a highly entertaining almost soap opera like tale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give me a break with the daycare stories. The teachers at our center send their own kids there. Explain that?

+1. Our center director and many of the teachers send their kids to our center. I check on the video feed often and have never once seen teachers eating the kids' food, hitting, falling down drunk on the playground, etc.

Same - and I drop in unannounced all the time, as do other parents. Zero issues.

You are kidding yourself. Staff know when parents are in the facility. There are often code words used. "Elvis is in the building" was used whenever a parent was unexpectedly on-site at my last center. I worked with a teacher who would put her long coat over kids and pretend to be hugging them. She was pinching their little ears. Another teacher took kids in the bathrooms out the camera site and smacked them on the head with their shoes if they took them off. These were degreed teachers in accredited centers. Yes I reported.

It would take me hours to list all the scary stuff I saw in even the "best centers". There are some great teachers out there. But there are also some awful ones. Low pay plus the stress of dealing with young children and long hours with few breaks creates a less than ideal environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give me a break with the daycare stories. The teachers at our center send their own kids there. Explain that?

+1. Our center director and many of the teachers send their kids to our center. I check on the video feed often and have never once seen teachers eating the kids' food, hitting, falling down drunk on the playground, etc.

Same - and I drop in unannounced all the time, as do other parents. Zero issues.

You are kidding yourself. Staff know when parents are in the facility. There are often code words used. "Elvis is in the building" was used whenever a parent was unexpectedly on-site at my last center. I worked with a teacher who would put her long coat over kids and pretend to be hugging them. She was pinching their little ears. Another teacher took kids in the bathrooms out the camera site and smacked them on the head with their shoes if they took them off. These were degreed teachers in accredited centers. Yes I reported.

It would take me hours to list all the scary stuff I saw in even the "best centers". There are some great teachers out there. But there are also some awful ones. Low pay plus the stress of dealing with young children and long hours with few breaks creates a less than ideal environment.

Whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give me a break with the daycare stories. The teachers at our center send their own kids there. Explain that?

+1. Our center director and many of the teachers send their kids to our center. I check on the video feed often and have never once seen teachers eating the kids' food, hitting, falling down drunk on the playground, etc.

Same - and I drop in unannounced all the time, as do other parents. Zero issues.

You are kidding yourself. Staff know when parents are in the facility. There are often code words used. "Elvis is in the building" was used whenever a parent was unexpectedly on-site at my last center. I worked with a teacher who would put her long coat over kids and pretend to be hugging them. She was pinching their little ears. Another teacher took kids in the bathrooms out the camera site and smacked them on the head with their shoes if they took them off. These were degreed teachers in accredited centers. Yes I reported.

It would take me hours to list all the scary stuff I saw in even the "best centers". There are some great teachers out there. But there are also some awful ones. Low pay plus the stress of dealing with young children and long hours with few breaks creates a less than ideal environment.

Whatever.

I think it's hilarious at people don't believe these stories. Why would PPs lie about this crap? Nobody is trying to scare anyone off from daycare, but this does exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give me a break with the daycare stories. The teachers at our center send their own kids there. Explain that?

+1. Our center director and many of the teachers send their kids to our center. I check on the video feed often and have never once seen teachers eating the kids' food, hitting, falling down drunk on the playground, etc.

Same - and I drop in unannounced all the time, as do other parents. Zero issues.

You are kidding yourself. Staff know when parents are in the facility. There are often code words used. "Elvis is in the building" was used whenever a parent was unexpectedly on-site at my last center. I worked with a teacher who would put her long coat over kids and pretend to be hugging them. She was pinching their little ears. Another teacher took kids in the bathrooms out the camera site and smacked them on the head with their shoes if they took them off. These were degreed teachers in accredited centers. Yes I reported.

It would take me hours to list all the scary stuff I saw in even the "best centers". There are some great teachers out there. But there are also some awful ones. Low pay plus the stress of dealing with young children and long hours with few breaks creates a less than ideal environment.

Whatever.

I think it's hilarious at people don't believe these stories. Why would PPs lie about this crap? Nobody is trying to scare anyone off from daycare, but this does exist.

Of course it exists. But the implication that anyone happy at a center is deluding themselves, that all (or even most) teachers are abusive, that everyone runs to cover up abuse whenever a parent arrives - total garbage. Sure, some places are bad. So are some parents.

[Anonymous]

Hospitals care more about money than care. To the point that they actually put patients in danger in order to save money. But I suspect thats not exactly a secret

[Anonymous]

Commercial leasing is an INCREDIBLY dirty industry as there is very little regulation. I saw this from both the very corporate side, working for a major bank, and even more when I worked as an independent contractor and lease broker. The amount of money I made off of these deals was ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give me a break with the daycare stories. The teachers at our center send their own kids there. Explain that?

+1. Our center director and many of the teachers send their kids to our center. I check on the video feed often and have never once seen teachers eating the kids' food, hitting, falling down drunk on the playground, etc.

Same - and I drop in unannounced all the time, as do other parents. Zero issues.

You are kidding yourself. Staff know when parents are in the facility. There are often code words used. "Elvis is in the building" was used whenever a parent was unexpectedly on-site at my last center. I worked with a teacher who would put her long coat over kids and pretend to be hugging them. She was pinching their little ears. Another teacher took kids in the bathrooms out the camera site and smacked them on the head with their shoes if they took them off. These were degreed teachers in accredited centers. Yes I reported.

It would take me hours to list all the scary stuff I saw in even the "best centers". There are some great teachers out there. But there are also some awful ones. Low pay plus the stress of dealing with young children and long hours with few breaks creates a less than ideal environment.

Whatever.

I think it's hilarious at people don't believe these stories. Why would PPs lie about this crap? Nobody is trying to scare anyone off from daycare, but this does exist.

I think there are nannies from the nanny forum who are pretty invested in scare stories. My kids are much older and I did all variants of childcare when they were younger so don't really have a horse in this race, but this is a pattern I've seen on DCUM.