It’s 6.30am and the alarm on my mobile phone drags me out of a dream I have been enjoying about winning the Euromillions jackpot.
I am momentarily depressed, then feel a sudden twinge of excitement. There are things to look forward to today. It is my first day of supply teaching, a new era in my career - one without marking or parents’ evenings or working until 1am or crying into my soup on a Sunday afternoon.
Instead of 5am starts for lesson preparation, I’ll be lying in for an extra hour and a half. This will be a new epoch of seven-hour days with travel and lunch expenses. People warned me it was a tough gig: “You won’t know their names, they will walk all over you,” my father-in-law said. But honestly, how hard could it be? It’s not like I haven’t faced down a class of teenage hooligans before, is it?
The South African agency guy - Josh - told me I would need to be ready and poised, early doors. When teachers call in sick there are only minutes to scramble a replacement so I’d have to be ready to rush out, streetfinder in hand. He makes it all sound rather epic and impressive. I feel a bit like an RAF Hurricane pilot waiting to be scrambled during the Battle of Britain. Or perhaps I should place my underpants over the top of my machine-washable suit trousers - for what is a supply teacher if not superman/woman? A scholastic saviour ready to teach any subject at anytime, anywhere?
I throw on my least favourite tie and lope down to the kitchen in search of snacks worthy of an advanced combat science teacher for hire. My emergency rations in the field will be a half-open box of supermarket doughnuts. If I’m not hungry, I can always use them to bribe the kids. I eat my bowl of porridge nervously, staring at my phone.
It’s 7.31 and Josh still hasn’t rung. Maybe he won’t ring today, I think to myself, maybe all the science teachers in all the land have miraculously turned up to work. Just my luck none of them has woken up with a disabling hangover/gangrene.
Deflated, I absent-mindedly lope off to the loo. When I return to my phone minutes later, a little notification blinks on the screen: “Missed call.” Gah! Surely not? Damn my bowels. The phone hadn’t even rung. Was there no mobile reception in my kitchen? I jab at the screen to find the number and call it back.
“Josh? Is that you? Did you call? You went straight to voicemail. Did you have a job for me, did you want me to head off somewhere?”
“Yeah, mate, listen, it was me. I couldn’t get through so I gave the job to someone else. There might be something for you tomorrow.”
“Oh, right...OK,” I say, loosening my tie. I hadn’t realised the margin of error was that narrow. It all feels a bit cut-throat. Better luck tomorrow. I bite into a doughnut.
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