191. Teacher or special agent?

I am moaning and raging and fuming and I am letting everyone know. Letting the steam out is my way to relieve stress. Having been moaning and raging for the best part of the week, steam's out now and I am sure I can cope. 

I have been asked to be an exam supervisor. On my afternoon off. With no warning whatsoever. I found out (almost by chance) while double-checking my schedule for the week ahead. No overtime. It said so at the bottom of the barely-legible crowded-with-useless-information form. I am staring at the page: ordre de mission. 

Seriously! That is what it says. Us French teachers do not just go to work and teach. No. We go on missions. 

And the fact that I was now on a mission made me less angry about having to change my plans for the afternoon. I suddenly felt energised to know that my hierarchical superior (we don't say boss) considered me a special agent, a female James Bond, a true  Martha Peterson. This filled me with a sense of purpose, of greatness even. Suddenly my professional life made sense. I was important. I had been entrusted with a mission to come to the help of La République. Like a virtuous shepherdess I packed the bare necessities (freshly squeezed orange juice, thermos mug of coffee, a mix of nuts, dried fruit and seeds, my laptop and my phone, cables, a book: Travels across Africa and a textbook: A Sure and Quick Way to Mastering the English Language of Today) and off I went into the cold rain and the gale-force wind.

Upon arrival it appeared that I had been assigned the post of 'corridor person'. 

'Hello! I'm the corridor person for this afternoon.' I announced proudly.

'There's no corridor here.'

That was tricky. I was the corridor person yet there was no corridor. Why was I going to do? Surely I was not going to be asked to sit on the grey tiles of the landing, without a plug in sight but just depressing grey walls. In my imagination this landing appeared to be the exact type of room where agents are interrogated once arrested. It sent shivers down my spine.

The friendly people around soon reassured me. As there were no corridors for the corridor people (there were two of us) we were sent to the coffee room on the ground floor. Now and again we were to pop up the stairs to see if we could be of some use. We quickly decided we could be contacted by phone. This would save us the popping up and down and the trauma of going through the interrogating room cum landing.

I locate a plug and set up shop. I was comfortably seated in a padded swivelling chair (8 in that room! I planned to take one back with up the copiers room where I spent so much time). I had barely lifted the lid of my laptop when suddenly my young corridor colleague arrived breathless.

'The head is not happy!' She whispered, he doesn't want us here! He wants us in the corridors!' She was a little frantic.

'But there are no corridors!' I said, far too loud.

'You cannot stay here, Mrs T, Mrs F, I think you are better be replacement people rather than corridor people.'

The head is new in this cool and is a bit lost at times. I try to be helpful.

'You see, I think corridor and replacement are two different things. We're corridor.'

He mutters something about how things need to be clear and how corridor people now will have to be replacement people really because we are missing people.

'Teachers missing in action!' I say, terrified as the little grey landing resurfaces in my mind.

Again he mutters something. I really have problems understanding him. His sentence structure does not match my sentence structure. It seems to be all over the place, his phonetics as well. It is as if some satellite connection is not made. I stare at him, my face blank and waiting for my hierarchical superior to enlighten and guide me. 

'Come this way!' and he marches me off into the cold elements and waves towards some classroom door.

'There. You can be the replacement in there.'

And there is my glamorous mission: four hours in this over-equipped room (ten computers, three printers, a scanner) and 11 students bent over their work in silence. I set up camp again and get out the Simone letter. I get all emotional as this is the first letter to come out of its folder. I am so scared of losing it. Every time I do the toilet run (corridor people and replacement people both have this toilet-run duty) I put it back in my bag just in case ... My poor young colleague stayed on her corridor mission and ran around from room to room and even from building to building all afternoon ...