Deleting Your Frontline Assignment - Yay or Nay?

Substitute teachers may need to delete a job they've already accepted.  Let's talk about when that may be okay.

Transcript

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This is Greg Collins, Episode 205 of substitute teachers lounge. Last week's episode 204 About frontline and cellular is now our most popular episode ever as far as downloads go, but you know what happened this week? I learned something about frontline that I didn't know and you need to know and it has to do with cancellation alright guys, you know, if you've listened to this podcast before, you know one of the measurement tools I use about how popular an episode was, is the number of downloads it receives in its first week, because you know, that's the heart of the Podcast, the podcast, most of the downloads occur in the first week, and then it might take another three or four months to double that at that point. Well, last week's episode, you guys like these about explanations of apps. Last week's episode, not only is the most downloads ever in its first week, it actually crossed that it went into first place on Thursday. So three days left, two days left, I guess 24, maybe 36 hours. So thank you for that you all obviously, like the explanations of the apps. And something happened this week. That was new to me never happened in frontline before. So I said, Well, let's talk about it. And I know one thing I went over quickly last week during the app explanation is canceling jobs that you have accepted or canceling something in front line, or even worse, not being able to cancel something. Now I think I'm picking up on the facebook group page that goes along with substitute teachers lounge that there are many of you that use frontline that never have an opportunity to cancel a job once you've taken it. And I'm going to walk you through real quickly. The screen by the way I did that video last week, no, everybody seemed to have been fine with the audio didn't get a whole lot of watches. And that's a little bit more trouble. In fact, it's a lot more trouble. So I probably won't do that again. So here's what we're going to do, I'm actually going to go in sort of reverse order. And I'll tell you something that happened to me because I'm going to guess that it's not going to happen to a lot of you, I am going to pull up my screen, have it open so that I can talk from the screen. So if you want to take a few moments, pause this and open your screen on a laptop. That's what I'm going to be talking from. And I'll tell you something that happened to me this week, then I will end on something that is more specific to the average substitute teacher as far as how they deal with frontline and when if ever, you should cancel an absence and what happens when you do Okay, so here we go. I am looking at my frontline education screen now under the absent haps Management tab, under scheduled jobs, what's a lot of words to say in it. And I'm going to tell you something here in just a moment that happened to me. But one thing that I am observing when I go to schedule jobs, you've got columns for date, time, duration, and location, and it shows exactly what that is the date is the actual date and the time it will list in my case, it's like 730 to three I know that's going to be a full day and the duration duration actually says full day on some absences if it's 730 to 11. I know it's a half day and it will be listed appropriately then, of course, the location is the school where you're at. There's a confirmation number that shows up in the gray area. But right next to that confirmation number. On my screen, you have a button that says cancel. If I touch that it won't cancel it immediately. It'll bring up a pop up window. In order to give you a second chance do you really want to cancel this because there's no way to back out if I choose to cancel that job and I'll tell you why I would do that sometimes here later. If I choose to cancel that job. It would in and confirm it would go away. And the reason you know I'd go away is because I would probably immediately get a tone from sub alert because I have similar load it those of you that use the app for frontline and you have tones setup, you'll probably hear something soon. And the reason you'll hear it is because now that job is available again, show your available tone that you have set, well, you'll hear it again. And it will tell you that jobs available. And I'll tell you how you may even make your conscience feel better when that happens here in a moment. But mine does have the cancel button. So look at yours when you get a chance and see if that cancel button is there. I'm not sure I'm getting the impression from our, our Facebook group that some of them think that that cancel button is not there. And since I don't live in their area, I can't tell them that they're wrong. I can say this. And I won't swear to this because I haven't seen it recently. I think that if you wait to the morning of the job, I think there have been times where that cancel button is no longer available. And I know for sure once I get into the school day, it's not available. But like if something comes up, it might not be available the morning of the absence. But I know I've looked in there to check before in fact, I've canceled the morning up because of a personal issue that had happened. So sometimes it's there. Sometimes it's not. So that's the area that we're talking about. Now, let me tell you what messed me up on frontline. It's my own fault. I got an email, I should say a text doesn't matter to you guys. But I got a text from a teacher two weeks ago, said, Hey, I'm going to be gone on April 19. Can you take my class that day? And of course I said sure. didn't think much about it. She said she would get to frontline unloaded over the next couple of days, took her probably into the next week. But she finally got it loaded. And it showed up all right, April 19. And she actually added April 20. to that. So a two day job. I thought that was great. I would do her classroom for two days. I clicked accept. And we were good to go. All right. Of course, the 19th was this past Wednesday, I show up on the 19th Everything's fine. She's actually in the room, because she's with her son and they were going somewhere for an appointment or was with a student I can't remember if it was It doesn't matter if whether it was an appointment or it like a field trip or something. But she was there had just like she always does has everything laid out so nicely. So but two hours go by and I'm thinking all right. Now there is only lesson plans on her desk for one day only for the 19th Is she going to go to the trouble to come back in the building to leave me plans? And I'm thinking, Man, did she mess up? Did she load two days instead of one? So I text her? Guess what? That's what had happened. She actually load it two days now, shame on me, because when I saw that two day job, I should have immediately text her we text all the time, I should have text her and say hey, did you really mean this was two jobs, but I just assumed it was. And I went in there. And sure enough, she had loaded it as a two, two day job. Now think about that for just a moment, you know from last week's episode, that once you accept the job, you're not going to see other jobs for that day that you selected, right. So what that means is these two weeks that went by that I thought I had a two day job. And I only had one. I could have been seen job jobs for that second day. But I wasn't seeing anything because as far as frontline was concerned, I had already accepted a job for the 20th. So first thing you will come across a time when you need to cancel a job that you accept it because of something like this. Now, the correct thing that what I should have done from the very beginning is to text her immediately when I saw that job and before I accepted it say hey, did you really mean this to be two days instead of the one that you said in your text? And everything would have been fine. She would have deleted that one and put just the one day in there. Now what did I do? At my lunchtime about 11 o'clock on the 19th I went to the office and as explained what happened they had it fixed within five minutes. So then I saw jobs for the 20th and that was okay but you know who knows there there's a one school in my A town that has gone to the top of my list for various different reasons. And I would have loved to have seen a job that day. I love this lady's class, but I would have liked the other facility even more. And had I been on top of that I would have understood what happened. episodes ago, another little situation that happened, I remember that. I explained to you that a, a teacher assigned me Holika jobs without even asked me, I don't even know the guy. And that was okay. But I'm glad I followed through and didn't show up because the job was actually for my wife, same last name. And somebody had told her I was substituting she had told them yes, I'll do it. So he just loaded it to her name. So he thought he actually loaded it to my name. So had I not brought that up I not only me and my wife much. But it would have been hilarious. If we both left in our car, it just showed up to that same school to accept the same job that day. So if something looks a little funky to you, when you get into frontline, make sure you ask questions, because in that case, I waited too long, I waited for two hours there. And I probably didn't see some jobs on the 20th that I would have liked to have had. Now let's go back to things within frontline when I cancelled jobs. And I did this early in my substitute teaching career, which was five years ago, it began in November of 2018. And then here recently, when I've kind of gotten back away from full time roles, here's what I do, go if you go back to that screen, back in a time where I didn't have any alerts set up. And if you're that person, if you like to just keep your laptop, open and refreshing, bless your heart, if that's what you do. That's what you do. And you're wanting to get a job before anybody else does. If you don't have alerts turned on, by the way, you might not even see some of those jobs. But anyway, if you're one of those people, that's fine. What I do, and what I continue to do on occasion, is I will accept the job immediately. So someone else doesn't grab it. One of my favorite teachers this week posted a job. And I heard the tone and I got distracted, I went back into it, it was only like three or four minutes later, and the job was already gone. So you really have to, they will go that quick. If it's a popular area, or teacher or subject, whatever, or specifically for that substitute teacher that accepted she liked social studies, perhaps she wanted to teach it, I'll look for math before I will other things. That's what I want to teach. So that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about. But what I would do is I would back then I would accept the job quickly. So I'd be the first one, then I'll actually go in and look at it in more detail. And I'm thinking, do I really want to take that job in that situation? Maybe something as little maybe they posted details. And I said, Well, I'm really uncomfortable with that it's not what I want right now, I've been known to go back in and cancel jobs. Now, I will admit, I will kind of keep an eyeball on that and hope that somebody else picks it up. Because I felt a little bit guilty. I mean, I still have to take out look out for number one. I mean, I'm, I'm the one working I am the one that's filling their gaps. I am the one in demand for substitute teaching. So I've kind of got the leverage to the point that I can accept jobs that I want. So I don't feel too guilty about it, it's still my life. But remember that when you accept a job, even if you don't even look at it, if you accept it blindly, that teacher that school will get an email that says, you just accepted that job, they know it's covered, they've got it in their grid. And if you immediately delete it, within a couple of minutes, they're gonna get that notification too. Now, I don't know every school is different. If they like you, they're not going to say a word to you. If they don't know you that well. I guess that could be ammunition for them to crush you offer their list. Maybe when they see you they cancel you the next time not just for spite, but because well. I'm not sure if that person is going to show up at the last minute maybe they canceled it because if they decide they want to go fish in the morning of their absent the absence do they accept it? They might just cancel it then and go off and then all of a sudden we've got something to feel so be courteous about it. Normally when I would do that it would be you know the night before at least so that there was still like 12 hours for somebody else to pick up that job. But I would cancel jobs. Now, once I got to know, teachers, sometimes if I had to cancel, I would tell them why I would tell it something personal has come up. I can't take it right now, or I'm feeling under the weather. I've actually only it's only happened to me one time, by the way, in five years, I actually could tell myself myself there was before COVID, I could tell that I was getting sick one day at a school that I was at all the time. And I told the teachers in the hallway, and they said, Go home, we'll take care of it, we know who we can get to cover, it might be somebody that's different each period for the rest of the day, but gain that reputation first. So just keep in mind, it's, if you've got the button to cancel, you can cancel, maybe you're just uncomfortable with it. But just keep in mind, on the flip side, that they are going to see all of those cancellations. Most of my long term jobs, I would never just cancel that by clicking a button, I would make sure I would tell the school about it, send them an email, a text, whatever it might not make them feel any better because they now they've got something to cover. But they'll they're understanding about it. Everybody has situations that come up, and you might accept a job and you have to cancel. So there's two reasons to cancel one's personal reasons. One, I would say this, if you're going to do the routine, where you accept it real quickly, then look at it. And then decide if that was really what you wanted to do and then cancel, try to do that within five or 10 minutes, because then it's like, almost like you never really accepted it was an oops. Again, I don't think I'll ever I'll say it right now I don't think I'll ever sub in elementary school, I don't think my wife will go to middle school very often unless asked by a friend. That's not our specialties. That's not the areas we'd like to be in. So we wouldn't accept that in the first place. But let's say I accidentally accepted one of those classes. And then I realized that and I click Cancel right away that way that gives that school a lot of time to refill that job don't just cancel right before you're getting ready to go in that would be a little bit more harsh. And I guarantee you the administration would remember you in that case. One last thing that happened to me on frontline for the first time, I actually accepted two half day jobs at the same school. One accepted in the morning, that was a 730 to 1130 job, the other wasn't 1130 to three. So I accepted one and then about two hours later, the other one shows up because there's no overlap there. So I accepted bimbo for some I've ever done it. Keep in mind that if you're doing that with different schools, if one is posted to go to 1130 and the second one is posted to begin at 11. You won't see that because those times overlap it will only show you times that don't overlap. So there's your frontline ammunition for the times that you may need to cancel a job when you should do it, what the repercussions could be. And you can go from here and decide what's best for you.