Last-Minute Substitute Teaching Jobs and Type A Personalities

From the highs of a surprise job opportunity to the lows of a last-minute job cancellation, the unpredictable nature of substitute teaching has shaped my approach to this profession. Imagine getting that early morning call, accepting a job, and halfway through your drive to the school, it gets canceled - a situation that's all too common and one that we'll discuss in detail. As a Type-A personality, I've experienced how our perfectionist tendencies can be both a boon and a bane, especially when navigating the world of last-minute jobs.

Whether you're a seasoned substitute teacher, a newbie, or a Type-A personality trying to juggle the demands of last-minute jobs, this episode has got you covered.

Transcript

Last Minute Jobs and Perfectionists

Speaker 1 0:00

Man , don't you hate those nights ? We stay up late , maybe , and you still don't have a substitute job yet you go to sleep . You don't know what your status will be in the morning . You wake up still no job , but then that last minute job comes in . What do you do at that point ? Also , we're going to talk about those crazy type A personalities like myself . What one has to do with the other ? This is Greg Collins substitute teacher's lounge . It's November 7th , 2023 , election Day , and it's time for us to make some decisions .

Speaker 1 0:52

All right , guys , let me just tell you I apologize for this rough sounding voice again Just when I've gotten over a cold , I got both my flu shot and my COVID shot . I'm having a few ramifications , everything from nose problems to back aches and all that kind of stuff , but I haven't gotten really sick . My wife did get sick once from a COVID shot , so I was hoping I wasn't going there and it's not going to be that bad . It's now over a week old , but we'll see how this goes . I've got a history with last minute jobs and how I've handled them and how I've changed how I felt about them over the years .

Speaker 1 1:37

I'm entering my six year , or this is beginning of my six year of substitute teaching and I'm also a very strong type A personality . Some people call it anal retinive and that's not . It's not really as derogatory as some people make it sound . That is an actual phrase for people that have a . You know , it's really the type A people . Their biggest I guess the best way to say it is their biggest benefit is also their biggest weakness . Their strength is also their weakness . Everything's got to be perfect time , perfect within us , perfect schedule , everything lined up exactly .

Speaker 1 2:22

My head softball coach . I was telling her a story once and I was talking about how organized a teacher was that I said for it . She said you mean , she's more organized than you . So that's the way people think about me . You need type A's and type B's , both . I don't have a creative bone in my body , so I have no type A . If you've ever taken those personality tests , I'm like a 90% type A strong math person . I shouldn't say type A . That's probably more a left brain and right brain comparison , but that goes along with it .

Speaker 1 2:56

My type A-ness has contributed to how I have approached last minute jobs . Now let me give you my history in accepting the last minute jobs because I haven't done it that often in my early days of substitution when I was playing what I bought you know what we call the substitute teacher roulette game where you back then , before I knew about sub alert , that's what I use . Now Some of you still just use the frontline app to give you notifications of new absences . This comes up all the time in our Facebook group . I mean all the time . I know from the data I have analyzed for weeks and weeks in my area , central Kentucky , I know that sub alert gives me a quicker notification by about 30 seconds than frontline does and that has to be at least I would say it's got to be at least 95 percent of the time is probably higher than that . Very rarely Will front line give me their notification first , even though that's the program that the teacher Enters their you know , enters their absence into . Keep in mind that none of these , I think , are really automated . I mean it's not instantaneous . I think the way they both work is refresh maybe every 15 seconds , every 30 seconds , I don't know . In that case sometimes you would think one would be earlier half the time , one would be earlier the other half the time . And again from the facebook group . There are some people out there that thinks front line is faster . I think subalerts faster , even though you have to pay for it . But you get An annual . You can pay for an annual years worth of subalert with a half a day of substitute teaching , so to me that's not an issue

Managing Last-Minute Substitute Teaching Jobs

Speaker 1 4:50

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Speaker 1 4:50

Let me tell you the early Not early the late job game that I used to play and how I play it now . I would play that roulette back that days before subalert . What I would do Is actually hit my refresh button . Now . The night before I was probably hitting it every every minute To see if anything new had popped up . In the morning I was probably hitting it every 15 seconds .

Speaker 1 5:17

Now here's where my type anus comes in . Okay , I would . If I wanted a job really , really bad , and I did back then , and I do still today , for that matter , but I'll get into that here in just a moment I would still put my clothes out . I would still take my shower . I'm a 5am person . It doesn't matter what I'm doing . I'm a 5am person . That makes it a little bit different . I think that's part of my type , a personality too . So I would get up my type a person , personality tells me to get up , take my shower , get my clothes on , be ready to go at the last second in case Something pops up . Of course , now , if you've got a reputation now , a good reputation , you're probably going to get more of your jobs through a phone call perhaps . But to be honest , I've been long term , a long , long time . Now that I've come back to maybe a day at a time , I'm picking up more , you know , off of the roulette wheel , so to speak , and it's working out fine . I'm working every day that I want to work . So here's what I did back then .

Speaker 1 6:29

I remember one job specifically . It was probably Maybe 7 , 15 . School starts at 8 . I had already taken my shower , I was ready to go . I see the absence , I accept it . I take off the school . I subbed there quite often , but I hadn't at that point . The school is about a 25 minute drive , which to some of you is probably nothing . In our area it's a little bit longer than people want to go because we're in a rural area and there's closer schools . So I take off , I'm halfway there and I get another beep and it's a tone and I look down and it says your job has been canceled . Well , guess what ? I don't get mad , but I was mad . I had driven halfway down there and she canceled the job on me .

Speaker 1 7:25

I found out later it was the secretary that canceled it . She canceled the job and I'm sure put somebody else that she knew she didn't know me , put somebody else in that job . Now I can't complain too much about that . I will complain . You shouldn't do that after someone else has accepted at the last minute . As you know , they're on the way . So I kinda said , yeah , I'm not sure I wanna sub at that school .

Speaker 1 7:53

Well , probably two weeks later one of the teachers of that school came up to me , said Greg , I'm gonna be absent on Tuesday . Can you teach my class ? I said sure , and that was Sunday morning , as a matter of fact . So I accepted the job . When she loaded it Sunday afternoon it got canceled . And I'm thinking , why would my friend just cancel that ? And we were close enough that I thought I would call her and see what in the world is going on . So I called her and she said Greg , she said I thought you canceled it . I just saw that you dropped off of my job and I just assumed you canceled it .

Speaker 1 8:37

Well , it turns out again , the secretary canceled that job and put somebody else in that she hires more often . Now here's what happened . At this point that lady my friend , calls the secretary directly . In fact , now that I think about it I realized that was a half days job and she gave her my number . She texts me and said I'm so sorry , mr Collins , I'll give you Emily's job if you want it , but there's actually a full day opening now . Can I put you there instead ? Of course I said sure , so went from a last minute job that I thought I'd never go back to that school . Not only did I go to that school , I've been to that school other than the COVID year . Let's leave that out , because that was a different situation . I've substituted that school more often than any . That secretary that was doing all the canceling . She's one of my best friends . She just retired . I was definitely at the top of her preferred list .

Speaker 1 9:39

They you know I've told you before that there was two and a half years of my subbing , that I was longterm all the time at three different schools . Well , for almost eight months I was longterm at this school for three different teachers . So it worked out okay . It started out as being frustrated about a last minute job , and I described how what I do to stay current as for kids , that I'm a type a personality you're I'm gonna get some majority of you don't want to get up anyway . You don't want to shower and clothes yourself anyway if you may not have a job . So you got a decision to make . I , as a type a personality , do that .

Speaker 1 10:23

Now I tell you I've changed though . Now , since I'm back to doing one day at a time , you know , I kind of like a day off here and there . I have figured out I gave up a lot of referring this year and I knew if I went back to four days of subbing a week that they would basically offset that . So that's what I've tried to do . And but one thing I've changed I don't get up and shower anymore most of the time if I don't have a job . Before I go to sleep one night I just say you know , tomorrow is going to be my day off this week , because I don't want to get ready at the last minute . I don't want to get up , even though I'm gonna probably wake up at five anyway . I want to just get up , relax and unless a close I won't even say close friend , unless a close teacher friend text me directly and says greg , my kids sick , I'm gonna have to stay home . Can you take my class today ? Well then , obviously I would do it then . In fact , most of the time the secretary called me , I would do the same thing more times than not . But , to be honest , I sub enough that I don't have that many days off and especially during volleyball season I didn't have that many evenings off either . So I would have things to do on that day off .

Speaker 1 11:43

But I would recommend for you guys , last minute jobs put you in a uncomfortable situation . I know hopefully you've learned how to research the teachers that you're going to sub for . You learn that on this podcast . You've learned how to try to find out what grade you're teaching , what age subject you're teaching , all that before you go in . And you can't do that with last minute jobs . You're kind of going in blindly . You don't have the time to research it . You know what you like to teach .

Speaker 1 12:20

Those last minute jobs could be very well something you don't like to teach and if you're a free spirit , if you're a non type , a personality , go for it . You probably don't care with me . It bothers me . You know they say about type a personalities I talked about . You know it's a strength that you're that organized but cut . But it's also weakness because sometimes you have less tolerance for those that aren't as organized as you . I joke around with my preacher all the time because we do a podcast together and we have a set time and I joke with him that I'm the kind of guy that if I show up to our schedule time five minutes early I think I'm late , and if he shows up five minutes late he thinks he's early . But that's just the difference in personalities . I everything has to be in order for me . The the volleyball coach like me because she knew I would keep all of our paperwork organized , our score sheets , anything she gave me to do she , she knew I would keep it organized and that's one of the reasons she added me to the coaching staff . But last minute jobs now for me I don't take anymore . They're not worth it to me .

Speaker 1 13:49

If you're one that likes to take it , you just have to decide how you're going to be prepared for that . You know there's some times that I'll see a substitute teacher absence posted like at 8.30 . And school started at 8.00 . And I'm thinking , whoa , if I hadn't prepared myself for that day and they call me ? What am I going to do ? Do I put a cap on so that they can't see my hair ? What do I do ? What if I don't have any clothes clean ? All that kind of stuff would enter into your mind . But you've got to be prepared for that .

The Role of Last-Minute Jobs

Speaker 1 14:26

Think about what you want your personal situation to be . If you have a last-minute job , if you're like me and you like to get up early anyway , you're going to take a shower sometime during the day anyway . Take a shower , get your clothes on , be ready to head out that door in five minutes If you're needed . You cannot believe how much credibility that will add to your job for that school . If you drop everything you're doing and you can go take that job , they are going to love you . You're going to get a lot more job to their school . You'll probably move closer to the top of their list because their other subs were probably already subbing somewhere . They had to find somebody else to sub for them and by doing it you're going to be one of their favorites all of a sudden . So , type a personality or not , you have to decide how late you're going to accept a job . Maybe you're just one of those like me now that when I go to bed I don't have a job . I'm not doing anything . Tomorrow Maybe you , you want to get the job regardless .

Speaker 1 15:43

I remember back in the day usually I turned my phone off not off off , but turned the sound off Because I don't want to hear anything . It's got a little feature on it now my watch as well that I can put it in night mode , and even the little roll up messages I get they won't even pop up on the screen . Back then , when I wanted any job I could find , well , I would leave all that on , and if somebody posted job at 2am in the morning I would hear it , probably hear it , although I've slept through fire truck noise across the street before , so I'm not sure I would hear it . But if I heard it in the middle of the night I would look at it and if it's something I'd like I would say that's great , I got a job . Now I go back to sleep and go from there .

Speaker 1 16:31

So last minute jobs you're going to decide . You have to decide what you want to do with them . Different days might be different . Sometimes you want to take them , sometimes you're not . But they're kind of a peculiar job in that you didn't get to plan for them . So just be ready for that , and if you're a type , a personality , bless your heart . We'll all get through this together . Hopefully , we'll all get all the jobs we need from now on Not at the last minute , but the day before .