When you’re a substitute teacher, you get to understand the concept of the literal 6am wake-up call very quickly. The only other time I’ve had a wake up call was the first time I went to Europe. It was a school trip and the easiest way for them to make sure all us kids got up on time was to set up wake-up calls to each room.
The way it works in the school board I’m in, you can be called either at night from 7-11pm or you can start getting phone calls at 6am. Your body starts to get used to the shock of being woken up so abruptly at 6am though and you learn to grab your phone by instinct without even having to turn a light on.
Now my body has also adapted to this wake-up call situation by automatically waking up for about 30 minutes – 6-6:30am. If my phone doesn’t go off in that time span, I roll over and go back to sleep. Sometimes it will then decide to go off in the next hour or so, which is incredibly stressful if the call requires me to be somewhere within the next 30 minutes.
Some people have suggested just always waking up at 6am and starting to get ready so that you can sit there and see if a call comes in.
…no thank you. If my phone doesn’t go off, I’m sleeping in until it is at least light outside. I’m not going to get up 6am if I don’t need to.
What are your thoughts on being startled awake by your phone? Has it happened to you? I’m sure some of you have gotten a drunk call that’s woken you up. (One of my staff actually did that my accident and called my work phone at 2am one night.) Or – my personal favourite – a wrong number call that wakes you up. Yep.
misssubstituteteacher 
Wow, I too was a sub (but it only ended up being for a very short period of time) and the early-morning phone calls were killer. Especially since I was registered with 2 districts, so if I got a job the night before I had to be super diligent about marking myself unavailable on the other district’s website.
The weirdest thing for me about subbing was how difficult the districts were about placing me on their lists – I had to really work to get onto their payrolls – but they just kept saying “there’s not much work; we have too many subs.” But then did I not get a call every single day? So what’s the deal, school districts?
And the middle-of-the-night wrong numbers are also a pet peeve of mine, especially when they leave long messages for “Audrey.” LOL
I find my own work goes up and down – it totally depends on the week. They told us the only way to getting a lot of work is to network so you can get pre-arranged work. The whole thing is a bit ridiculous though in terms of what you can get for work because of the huge hierarchy.
I never understood why people will leave messages when it’s clearly a wrong number since my voicemail says my name. Bit bizarre.
Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! Enjoy the day 🙂
Thanks! I actually taught today so I just got home and was like – holy smokes there are a lot more notifications than I’m used to!
Wow it sounds like the life of a substitute teacher is pretty harsh! My girlfriend is training to be a teacher and if she doesn’t get a job per-se she’ll have to go down this route… bad times!
Our school district has the same system for delays or snow days. So, you can’t ignore the call, because you need to know which one it is – a 2 hour delay or whole day cancellation. Very, very, very annoying.
The school district seems to be the last one to make that decision among, since the web site never posts our school on the evening before – I mean I checked at 1 a.m. and there was no info. I guess not everyone hates morning calls 🙂
None of the school boards in my area do call outs for snow days – they tell the radio stations/tv stations and then post it on the website. Bus delays are done by the bus companies and therefore not the schools job to relay the message. School closures are a different matter, but they’ve always been rare – although this year we did have some for once. Still – information was posted online and announced via radio/tv and that was it. No phone calls.
When I used to do “on-calls” for work, I grew to hate the sound of my phone ringtone. When I left that job, and realised I don’t have to do more overnight on-calls, I changed the ringtone to remove the negative association!
Casting my mind further back, the worst was when I had to carry a bleep/pager. Some nights, the interruptions were frequent enough that I’d sometimes wake up and be absolutely sure I’d just been bleeped, but when I rang the ward to check, they denied it. Just my imagination!
Congratulations on Freshly Pressed, and thanks for reminding me to be grateful not to work nights these days. 🙂
I definitely think that I’m going to have to change my ringtone when I get full time to erase the bad memories. I have a terrible habit of playing with my cell constantly now at night though waiting to see if I get a call – even if I’m out with friends. Sometimes it’s the automated system and sometimes it’s a teacher calling to pre-arrange something. At least it’s all automated in the morning so it doesn’t matter if I’m only half awake.
And thanks! It was a surprise to log on and suddenly have so many comments!
I agree! The average person doesn’t get enough sleep as it is. By all means, roll over.
I’m still at a point where I accept literally every call I get though – but I suspect when I’m getting more consistent work, I’ll turning some down – especially since the board I work in is so massively huge, the drive to some schools can be rather long.
This is great. I’m not a sub, but my big brother is, and that means the entire family from my 50-year-old mom to my 11-year-old sister had to get used to the wake-up call too. At least we weren’t the ones having to answer the phone and try not to sound too much like a zombie. Thanks for the fun post. It made me smile.
Yeah – it’s amazing how loud a phone can be in the morning too. I moved home to save money so luckily my parents’ room is the complete opposite end of the house from mine so they don’t hear it. We’ll see how my sister handles it when she moves home at the end of the month from university!
Did your brother have a live voice calling him then? I don’t care too much how I sound in the morning since it’s automated for the school board stuff. I get a live voice for my other on-call job though and that’s when I try to sound more awake.
There should be some concrete rule there so that they CAN’T call outside of a time frame (6-6:30). Me personally, I would go for the 7pm-11pm might disrupt a dinner but at least it’s not getting in the way of sleep!
For my board the rule is 6am-11am because some teacher may put in late for a sub. I know I’ve ended up being called in for an afternoon only because they’ve had to go home to take care of a sick kid. You can put a do not disturb on your phone too if you don’t want to be called until a certain time, but I haven’t really bothered to use that yet. I just take the call, get my butt in gear and go teach!
I substituted at the elementary level for a while when I was looking for a new job. That was a painful experience. They’re in elementary school, right, how hard could it be? I never want to do that again. In the end, I would listen to my phone ring and let it go to voicemail.
I fell back into my military experiences, though; we sang cadences on the way to and from lunch/the playground/music. I appointed a lieutenant to help me keep track of the other kids, typically the teacher’s pet. We marched everywhere we went. It got to be a little fun; not enough to do it again, though.
Cops, teachers, and firefighters NEVER get paid what they’re worth!
Tony
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I usually work with high school students which is a bit better – if only because you only have to see that one group of 25 students for 80 minutes before the next group comes in.
I like the idea of using military ideas – maybe I’ll use that for camp this summer. I feel the high school students may start a revolution if I use it on them.
Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! It is a really cool feeling, isn’t it? I never have been a morning person!
Nancy http://www.workingmomadventures.com
Thanks – it was quite a surprise to come home from a day of subbing and find it!
And I’m still not a morning person. I usually only get through it thanks to a large amount of coffee.
That’s the worst feeling, being scared by your phone while you’re sleeping. Actually, you wake up feeling really sick uggggggh lol
Oh totally – the first few times it went off it scared me out of my wits, plus I was nervous about teaching on my own for the first time about the first 4 or 5 times I went out. Now it’s better and I can handle it but it still startles me a lot.
I don’t recall the last time I have been woken up by a phone call. But, I imagine it to not be a fun way to wake up. Have a great day!
No, it’s not particularly pleasant, but at the same time it means work as opposed to sitting at home twiddling my thumbs!
My best friend wakes me up all the time on the weekends. I get annoyed that she wakes me up.
I called my sister two days ago and woke her up from a nap. She was so disoriented and she kept saying, “what is the date?” and i said “April 9th” and she said “oh good, I thought it was thursday”
she is a third grade teacher.
I find being woken up from a nap by my phone is even worse. I have a tendency to come home and nap if I’ve had a particularly long day – which can be pretty often when dealing with kids. Last summer a friend of mine from work called me with a question – even though we had a work function that night. I was fully passed out and nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone went off.
And I’m totally like your sister – since I don’t have a set schedule all my dates are completely mixed up.
I hate early-morning calls, always think something’s wrong. And when I set my alarm early, I can never quite sleep right. Always end up waking up before the alarm.
Yeah – in the past early morning phone calls have usually signified something bad. However, since I’m living at home bad news usually comes through on the house phone, not my cell – so at least when my cell goes off at that hour I know it’s either one of my friends being stupid or work.
haha…. it reminds me of my friends….
when i was in school, i had few friends who calls me up late at night with the sole intention to break my sleep….
i kinda miss it sometimes now … 🙂
yeah i agree, i hate being waked up in the morning (which mom used to do as i have my classes)…..
now that i live in another state and working, i wish mom was there to wake me up :((
when i set my alarm, i end up putting it off and go back to sleep and end up being late in the office with empty stomach 🙂
I do admire you for doing temp work… I used to be a temp consultant (as in I was one of those people calling you in the morning) and being a temp is so demanding- I could never do it myself. I have to say, I would probably be one of those people who would get ready and wait for the phone to ring. Otherwise when the call comes in- I could not take the pressure…lol.
Well I think since I really don’t have to prepare anything for these calls – the regular teacher is supposed to leave work – I know that when I get there, I’ll find out what it is I’m supposed to be doing. I’ve had it happen twice now where I haven’t been able to find the lesson plans. Luckily both times I found other teachers who could help me out and it all worked out in the end. Oddly – both of those times were afternoon only calls. The teacher just managed to leave the folder in the wrong place.
Late-night and early-morning calls freak me out because I think it must be bad news, or else it could wait. Got an early a.m. text while in California this weekend because my friend forgot it was 2 hrs ahead at home, so the text woke me up way early on my vacation! Yea for you for going back to sleep until you know there’s a reason to get up!
Well since bad news will usually come through on the landline at my house I at least don’t have that with my cell thankfully.
And being woken up early on vacation? Yuck. It’s one thing if you’re getting up to do something, it’s another if it’s just for a stupid reason.
I keep my telephone two rooms away from my bedroom. And even at that, the ringer is set to volume 2, volume 4 max. I don’t allow my telephone to ruin my sleep. No way, no how.
Kudos to you. You are a heartier soul than I.
Well it’s how I get work so it’s not something I can avoid at this point. Once I get full time somewhere though – no way am I keeping my phone on at night. Not a chance.
Best wake-up call was basically, ‘Hey, that job you applied for? You still interested? How about starting next week instead of a month later?’
Not the kind of conversation during which you want to sound half-asleep. I did get the job, though, and it’s awesome. Even though I’ve gotten a couple more early-morning calls from my boss since. 🙂
Nice! That would definitely be worth being woken up for. 😀
I am pretty good at grabbing my phone as it wakes me from my sleep, usually with a grimace on my face. Not being a sub I won’t have work on the end of the line, usually a drunk friend or someone asking me a question over a trivial subject. Thanks mate!
I would stay in bed around 6am rather than wake up for sure!
Drunk calls do have a time and a place though. I’ve gotten the odd one over the years and usually at the time I’m annoyed, but then later I think it’s pretty funny – depending on how the conversation went.
Glad to know I’m not the only emergency sub who gets tightened up in the morning when the phone rings telling me come in. I know I shouldn’t feel that way– subbing brings in most of my income– but I do.
Well it’s because no matter how long you do it, you still get a bit flustered by being startled awake right? That’s what kills me is the being jolted awake unexpectedly. Though it is nice to have the work – money is always welcome.
its 4.03am and im still awake.. i sleep during the day..
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Fair enough – I don’t think I’d be able to work a night shift. My brain pretty much shuts down after dinner time.
I don’t like getting called much as it is, let alone being woken up by it! Of course, my problem mostly persists at other hours… Say, 2 PM. But that’s still a problem! Geez, people are so inconsiderate nowaday…
I find I don’t get too many calls from friends – we mostly text. So at least I know when my phone rings properly it’s likely something work related. I hate the amount of junk calls I’ve been getting in the middle of the day though – and especially the ones in the evening when I’m relaxing or eating dinner. I don’t mind answering if it’s work or something, but for junk calls? Yuck.
I mostly text as well (and thank god for that,) which just makes it so much more unbearable when someone calls you before you’ve even gotten up, geez!
I was a substitute for several years before I became a classroom teacher, and the other troubling aspect, besides being woken up at 6 A.M. is that you don’t know who you’re going to be until you get the call. You have little time to mentally prepare for being an English teacher that day, or teaching math or P.E. or being the band director.
Since I’m on a very specific automated system I usually only get called for my teachables. Sometimes I’ll show up thinking I’m there for Drama though, only to be told I have a full day of English. I got a call for Phys Ed one time though that turned out to be math. I find I like when I can psych myself up, but it’s also kind of nice to just get the call and go because I don’t have time to really overthink it in those situations.
Thankfully, I can’t say I’ve experienced that too much. I can’t imagine being on call that early in the morning.
Oh it’s been a learning experience! I think I’ll be able to fully appreciate a full time permanent job even more now.
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I just turn off the phone till I’m ready to get up but if I had to wait for a call to determine if I was going to work or not I would probably get up. I’m a morning person!
I’m not a morning person, but I pretend I am now if it means I’m getting work. Thank goodness for my background in theatre – I’m able to fake it.
Well, having lived the Substitute Life last year, I totally get where you’re coming from.
However.
I was hired by a large school district that is far away, and now I wake at 4:00-4:30 every day and I would trade that for the 6 AM wake up call any day.
Eww…I don’t think I could do that. The board I work for is pretty large, but I luckily live right in the middle of it so my furthest drive is just over an hour I think. I don’t know if I’d be able to hack a 4am wake up call at all though. 6am is hard enough – especially in the cold dark winter.
I thought my phone was going off so grabbed it and went “Hello?”
And then I realised it was the alarm on my mobile, which I’d stupidly set as the same ringtone as my actual ringtone.
Whereas when it was my phone going off, I thought it was my alarm …
I did that on my old phone a couple of times when I was traveling and didn’t have an alarm clock. It’s a bit unnerving to do that. Mine also vibrates when it rings so sometimes I hear the vibration before the actual ring.
I’ve been away from the wake-up calls (5:30 a.m. where I teach in the Plattsburgh, NY area) and your “Freshly Pressed” post brought me back to my impending reality like, well, a 6 a.m. wake-up call. Good job on relating the feelings the night before, and before the wake-up call. It’s amazing how the body becomes it’s own alarm clock to avoid being jarred by the ring in your dreams.
5:30am seems that much harsher. At least 6am is somewhat reasonable since it’s what time I end up waking up if I know I’m working at a school.
When you say you’ve been away from the wake-up calls, is if because you just got a full time position?
Graham – blogging works… Just came across your blog on the wordpress site, gone to your website and as I love a good port, will be heading into the local bottle store in Sydney to get a bottle – can’t wait.
Thanks mate.
How embarrasing… I wrote this on the wrong blog… 😐 Had read yours, and then came across another one! This is the time I’m glad my email address is not posted – oops, and sorry!
No worries – I kind of wondered what had happened – now I know!
I’d love to be able to sleep until 6 AM! My husband is on his second tour in Afghanistan and he calls whenever he can get access to a phone, which could be 11 AM or 3 AM or anytime around the clock. When someone in the unit is killed or seriously injured people start calling to make sure that everyone waiting at home knows that our soldiers can’t call us until the family of the KIA or injured is notified. When your spouse is deployed you are never out of ear shot of the phone, and are glad for those calls that come even if they come at 4 am!
Oh wow – I would really struggle with something like that just because I feel like I would be on edge all the time. And every time the phone rang I’d be worried it was bad news. I was bad enough when my grandma’s health was going downhill last summer/fall because every call could be “that call” – and she was at least very old and had lived a good life.
Though I suppose when you get those good calls it really does make you happy to have been woken up!
I’ve done some supply/substitute teaching in Scotland and the situation with the wake-up calls is the same … maybe they could just wire people up with electrodes – that would probably be kinder. Wonder if other countries have different systems.
I think there’s the odd school board that still does call outs with a live person on the other end, but with the type of work it is – there’s always going to be early morning calls. Just the way it works I suppose.
I’m a sub too and I cannot get over the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when the phone rings. I’m signed up for three districts and only one is automated. I love the automated system because you don’t have to feel guilty when you say no, you don’t have to pretend to be happy and cheery when you speak, and you can preset days off in you’d like. One of the schools recently called me at 7:30 am to show up at 8. I would not have had enough to time to eat breakfast and travel there. I’ve decided after this break I’m going to start waking up at 6am just in case. It’s just easier to be ready that way and to mentally prepare. I’m going to hate it, I know, but it’s the only way to work regularly and have half a brain in the morning because when I don’t eat, I’m a mess. I can’t think straight and I feel faint. It’s my reaction to glucose levels in my blood so it’s important that I eat regularly. Loved your blog! Thanks for making me smile and feel kinship!
My favourite call I’ve gotten for last minute was being called at 8:15 – to be there for 8:15. I took the job then called the school to tell them I’d be late. I find I manage to always grab something to eat even if I’m running out the door and I’m eating it in the car – like a granola bar or apple. I’m big on portable food when I’m in a rush.
Good luck to you with the always waking up at 6am. I couldn’t do it – I like my sleep too much I’d end up bitter if I didn’t get called that day when I was up and ready to go.
Sometimes I set an alarm to remind my self that I don’t have to get up. I know don’t ask…there is something mucked up in my noggin.
Great post and good luck with your sub-teaching career, you have an amazing job!!!
Congrats on being Freshly Pressed.
Blessings,
Ava
xox
That does seem a bit backwards lol! Sometimes if I know I don’t have to be up at a specific early time I’ll set an alarm for later in the morning just so I do actually get out of bed. I have a tendency to wake up and just lay in bed and not really move until much later otherwise.
And thanks!
Haha, I know what you mean!
I think I like that awesome feeling when you wake up going “Oh no! I gotta be somewhere” and then realizing that you don’t have to.
It sucks how I always have to get up just when the bed is at its perfect temperature.
Edwin
Well getting up early during the winter especially sucks, given that it’s still dark out when I’m leaving my house.
After graduating with a teaching degree, I spent 10 years working in libraries. I can still relate to the wake-up calls. But it isn’t my phone. It’s my apartment door alarm. 2:15 am. People trying to find other people’s apartments. Or residents who walked to one of the dozen bars and clubs and restaurants around here and forgetting their keys.
Gotta love it. I remember hearing all the drunks walk home from the campus bars when I was in uni. Luckily I never had anyone call up to me trying to get in though!
Oh I did! I was an RA and a manager at one of the University apartment complexes. Being woken up is NOT a pleasant experience.
My favorite was a young woman who dropped her keys under her car and woke me up to key her into her apartment because her “keys would cooperate better in the morning”. I offered to get the keys for her, but she seemed pretty upset. And too drunk.
Awkward!
http://www.awkwardlist.com
Oh those are fun – that was why I never wanted to be an RA. Thought about it long and hard, but after hearing some stories from my friends about some of the stuff that they had to deal with decided being on call and having to play mom to a bunch of university students wasn’t my cup of tea.
I wrote a post recently on waking up at 6am, and the unreasonable expectance of staff performing pre 9am… It’s so true, if there’s no reason for me to be awake at 6am, there’s not chance in all hell that I will be!
I think it’s especially hard for teenagers to function that early in the morning. I notice a huge difference in performance between a class that is first period in the morning and one that’s second period.
Congrats on being FP 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
I’ve done the sub thing. The voice on the automated call system creeped me out.
Anyway, I usually curse whoever calls/startles me and ignore the phone.
Congratulations on being FP!!
Thanks!
Yeah the automated voice is a bit disturbing. I’m on call with a private company as well and they call out with a live person so for awhile I was getting more calls from them. Then when I would get the automated voice instead it was that much more jarring. Now it’s the opposite – I expect the automated voice when I answer my phone so when I get a live voice I’m freaked out.
I was going to comment at 6:00a.m., but I figured you wouldn’t be up yet….
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Depending on the day I might be for work!
i always keep my phone on silent when i go to bed. i value my sleep time. haha. i guess it’s okay at this point since i’m young and single. i don’t have anyone that would call me first and be relying on me in case of emergency. i’ll have to figure out what to do when that happens later.
i’m a substitute teacher right now too, but i’m working on my student teaching so i always know ahead of time when i’ll be subbing. they send out the calls at 5am around here. glad i don’t have to be up that early! 6:15 is where i’m at as it is. 🙂
Yeah I couldn’t handle 5am calls – 6am is bad enough but that’s the time I’d have to get up if I was working just so I could make it to most of the schools.
Oh, hell no! My S.O. is in show biz and has no problem whatsoever with crazy hours, up to and including last-minute situations communicated in the wee hours of the morning. I crave predictability, so I’d be miserable either as a substitute or in many facets of show biz. I’m also miserable for late-night conversation, which my S.O. has stopped trying to have with me.
I wish I could be a little more relaxed about that time. I love that I can wake my S.O. up in the middle of the night and know he’ll engage in conversation, no matter how tired he is. I try not to do it too often since it’d drive me batty if he did it . . . but I’m grateful for his patience in the wee hours, when I’m not nearly so patient.
Well I’ve done both now between doing some live theatre and subbing. I too prefer predictability, but at the same time the flexibility of my current schedule is nice so I can take random vacations.
Props to you for being a substitute teacher… No easy task for sure! I took am used to early morning wake-up calls; for me though it is usually when a teacher is calling off though! Oh the joys of being the director of an early learning center… 🙂 Congrats on being freshly pressed!!!
Yeah it’s hard when you’re in charge – when I supervise my summer camps my staff call into me and I’m the one who has to find new staff which can be frustrating.
Thanks!
waking abruptly at 6:am doesn’t freak me at all because these things instigates me more to sleep and to find some other solutions to it may be sleeping with an ear bud is a good option
I’d be more upset if I missed the chance to work though by managing to sleep through the calls.
Hmm, I can’t imagine the days of being awaken at 6am constantly to go to school! There are times when I wake up early for events but normally I hate the sound of my phone waking me up when it’s unnecessary, especially the most stupidest reasons – for example, at 11/12pm, my mum called me from across the hall (in her room) asking where I was (I fell asleep long ago).
That’s funny – so far my mom hasn’t pulled that just yet. Though she does seem to enjoy using IM from down the hall at times just to bug me because I’ll respond by yelling down the hall.
Every morning i want to throw my phone (aka my alarm) against the wall and watch it shatter into a million pieces. I fell ya!
Yeah – it’s not particularly fun.
Nice read. My phone alarm goes off at 4.45am because of the long driving distance I have to cover (need to be in my office by 7.30am. I’m being forced to put my phone far away from my bedside so that I have no choice but to drag myself out of bed to shut the damn thing off – That’s sounds good but who am I kidding…Snooze 😀
Yeah – I have a tendency to set my alarm just a touch earlier than I need to be up because I know I’m going to hit snooze at least once or twice before I actually move. I can’t imagine being up that early to be at work though. That’s ridiculous!
I love this post as it somewhat relates to me in waking up early.
When I was in school, my mom used to wake me up early to get me ready for school and however I hate to wake up early, I got used to it….
Then I got into the university and those 3 years in the hostel was great fun. I was used to getting up at 9 am, take a quick shower, grab something for a bite and bounce off for my classes.
Now that I am working as an intern in a travel company and staying alone all by myself, I have started becoming responsible towards my life.
I can’t be that carefree college going girl anymore and sleep soundly till sunlight peers through my curtain. Instead I get up early morning, fix myself a breakfast and set off for my work.
Waking up early is really hard but I am getting used to it since I’ve been doing it since past 4 months now.
And thankfully the only calls I get in the morning is from my boyfriend who gives me a wake up call to make sure that I reach office in time with my stomach properly fed…. 🙂
Sometimes it’s my parents checking on me if I’m doing ok waking up in the morning… lol
Well, I guess how much you love sleeping late, you don’t mind getting up and going for work. It’s a great job you are doing, I once had a dream of being a teacher but landed up in a travel industry though…. Still I love my job and I kinda love getting up to a beautiful sunshine starting my day 🙂
Yeah – I’ve got to balance out the whole needing to work vs. my love of sleep. I usually try to go to bed by 10:30pm now just in case I do have to get up in the morning.
Used to happen to me all the time because I used to temp. in NYC on 2nd shift. Although I TOLD all my agencies not to call me for a.m. jobs, they did. And it wasn’t pretty! Sometimes I would only have gotten a few hours of sleep before the phone rang. Finally moved my answering machine to location far away from the bedroom and turned down the volume. Now I just turn the phone ringer off when I’m asleep. I tell people to call any time of day or night because when I’m asleep the ringer is off and I don’t hear it at all! That way I retrieve messages when I’m good and awake.
I’d do exactly as you do, roll over and go back to sleep, because I am not a morning person. Ugh. That whole idea of staying on a schedule and getting up at 6:00 a.m. daily is good as ideas go, but if you’re not an early riser by nature it’s just no fun to do. What I’d say is turn your ringer off after 6:30! That way you can go back to sleep w/out fear of being interrupted!
Ah, but I do like the work. If it’s a call for work I try to balance out the making money with the annoyance at being woken up. Although sometimes my one friend will text me very early in the morning – he forgets I’m not always up at that time if I’m not working and has woken me up on a few occasions.
I just turn off the phone till I’m ready to get up but if I had to wait for a call to determine if I was going to work or not I would probably get up. I’m a morning person!
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I could never be a proper morning person! Though coffee does make it bearable.
The oil industry made me a very early morning person. You get to see many dawns that way, many from offshore.
Alarm clocks made me jolt awake in irritation and caused me to start the day off badly. I soon learned to wake a few minutes before the alarm went off, once I impressed upon myself a specific time.
I have been able to do that ever since, and don’t need an alarm clock to wake me at any hour of the day or night now. I am sure there are other people who have been able to do this.
I find when I get on a schedule I tend to wake up right before my alarm as well – but given the fact that I have a very unpredictable schedule at the moment…
phew!!! that’s irritating
but for me i keep waking in the middle of the night, take look at the clock and then again decide to sleep whatever be the time!!!
so am always late!!!!
and guess what????
i am an engineering student.
any ways i like your post.
I always end up being early when I have a proper schedule – even when I was a student. Though there were a few days of showing up in pjs.
I subbed for a year until I got a full time position. I found myself having both positive and negative thinking at 6:00 each morning.
Positive: I hope the phone rings so I can work today! Oh how I love kids!
Negative: If that phone rings I’m going to throw up because I need another 3 hours of sleep and don’t want to deal with kids who don’t know me.
Yep – that about sums it up. It’s amazing how gross you can feel when you get up that early in the morning. I tend to force myself to eat, but it doesn’t always go down easy.
Good post. I subbed before teaching full time and out district used a system called Sub Finder. I hated getting those calls.
Apparently some districts now do an online system as well where you can snag jobs as soon as they’re posted, before calls go out last minute. Wish mine had that.
I actually had a wrong number stalk me! The person clearly did not want to believe that the number she had was NOT the correct one. This would not bother me, but the calls were all between 3am and 5am. I tried to just put the phone down but no such luck! That would just make her call even more often. After a couple of weeks and various pleading text messages, she finally realised that she clearly has the wrong number….
Clearly super annoying. In general though, it doesn’t bother me if my phone wakes me up…
My sister had that for awhile – and it creeped her out because it was some really awkward guy.
When you have older kids that are of driving age, believe me when that phone rings ANYTIME of the day or night, you’re on it!
And I’ve had it go off at all hours. And it only has to ring once and I’m up and on it! If it’s 2am, it’s usually my son telling me he’s staying put at a friends and I appreciate that. It’s the 5am phone call that I wasn’t expecting. And having the local hospital on the other end.
When I was room mom for the kids when they were younger (oh how I miss those days) part of the job was getting the 5am phone call for a school closing (this was before automated calls or internet notifications). So if I knew it was going to snow and probably a school closing was in store, I was usually awake enough to expect it. So when it rang, I wasn’t hitting the ceiling.
Oh that’s still a long way off for me at this point. I moved home and I’ve taken to texting my mom because she’ll check it in the morning and this way she knows where I am but I don’t wake her up.
I get random wake-up calls in the middle of the night from tenants about things that aren’t important…they just felt the need to call to ask me a question or tell me stuff. It’s nice yours have a purpose, but that still must suck.
That’d be awful – especially given that it would likely be things that could be dealt with at a more reasonable hour.
I get the 3 am pages because I’m IT support for our HR system at work. It totally sucks. Especially considering I have a 6 month old at home that wakes up to eat at 6:00 AM! Sometimes I’ll just be falling back asleep when it’s time to wake up and feed her.
3am seems excessively early to me – that I wouldn’t be able to do on a regular basis. Once in a blue moon maybe.
Better to be awaken at your designated time by your alarm than by a noisy neighbor in a bad investment situation. Be ware when purchasing a condominium if you don’t see your next door neighbors specially if you are going to be next door or beneath the neighbors. There is a reason they are not around.. so you the buyer or renter get a false sense of this place is so quiet. Put in a clause to live in the place at least month and specifically ask are the neighbors around.. And speak to them and ask questions, some may actually give you the lowdown on a complex.
Yeah I can imagine. When I lived in apartments during university I had some good and some VERY bad situations with neighbour noise.
That sounds painful as hell. The only times I ever see the world at 6am is when I pull all-nighters.
The only time I’ve pulled all-nighters have been parties thankfully – and even then those have been rather few. But I’ve seen a great number of 6am mornings for work/school.
Wow! I worked as a sub-teacher for years. Fortunately, I was told the day before that I would be needed the following day. Simply because I was a permanent sub. However, I despise those in the middle of the night calls or text that say, “Are you up?” So annoying and foolish! LOL.
Nice blog!
Smiling is Contagious! 🙂
Yeah I’m at the bottom of the seniority pool at the moment since I was a new hire in the fall so I don’t have that luxury all the time. Wish I did though!
its best … a very cute smile came on my face after watch it.
Hi, I have been teaching for 6 years and then I took a leave of absence to care for my child. This quickly became two children and my leave extended to EIGHT years.
I am going back to work next year, when my little one turns 4. I will be starting out as CRT, (Casual Relief Teacher in Australia), and so not looking forward to an early start. Especially when I am NOT a morning person.. ah, the irony.
Anyway, enjoyed your post. Will keep an eye for your future ones too … cheers 🙂
New-ish blogger?, join my ride as I explore all things blogging – in Blogging101, or something like that ..
http://maryawrites.wordpress.com/
Yeah not being a morning person is difficult as a teacher – it takes a good amount of coffee to get me going so I can function.
a great note from a great teacher.
yes,.. we have automatic natural clock in our brain.
6:00 am wake up call,… it’s best with coffee
check our unique information about coffee
Oh I definitely do rely on coffee in the morning.
Like you, I’d rather sleep until past 6 AM unless I got a call. It makes sense, doesn’t it? 🙂 I have only been woken up by a call once. It was by a drunk boyfriend (now ex-boyfriend) and it was funny because he was supposed to be sick at home. Ah., the miracles of sudden calls, eh? *lol* I do admire your skill in waking up anytime your phone rings and then hopping off the bed when duty calls.
I think since I’ve grown to expect early morning calls over the past few months it’s gotten easier to react quickly. It was hard in the winter though when it was dark and cold out, and my bed was of so warm.
Yeah, I can just imagine the dilemma of staying in a warm bed while it’s still cold and dark outside. *lol* But yay! At least you got used to it by now. What grade do you teach?
Mostly high school aged kids since that’s my specialization – so they’re all half asleep too. Works out well.
I thought of my substitute teacher .Where is she now? 🙂
Good question! You could probably try and google her if you know her full name.
As funny as it sounds, I have ALARMS set throughout the night to wake me up, starting at 12 am. I didn’t set these all at once, they’ve been set since around the time I got the iPhone 4. I never bother to delete my alarms, I always just switch them off. And so they stay there, where I sometimes use them again, and sometimes don’t. I’ve got timings like 2:30 am, 1 am, and so on and so on. It’s throughout the night, until 6 am. I usually normally get up at 5, so the 6 am alarm is sometimes no use to me.
As you probably realized, I’m shit used to being woken up suddenly by an Alarm. As for my phone ringing, well, that’s also happened quite a lot of times by friends who’ve woken up in the night remembering homework we had to do together in a group. Then we head down to our local 24-hour Starbucks, grab some coffee, and get down to work.
Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed!
Ashley, aka TheEverydayMuser
Better to be awaken at your designated time by your alarm than by a noisy neighbor in a bad investment situation. Be ware when purchasing a condominium if you don’t see your next door neighbors specially if you are going to be next door or beneath the neighbors. There is a reason they are not around.. so you the buyer or renter get a false sense of this place is so quiet. Put in a clause to live in the place at least month and specifically ask are the neighbors around.. And speak to them and ask questions, some may actually give you the lowdown on a complex.
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