This has been a rather unlucky school year for me. I’m a substitute teacher, and I’ve been trying to spend the year working a string of long-term assignments for teachers, instead of 150 different classrooms. Last March, a teacher approached me and asked if I could be a long-term sub for her while she was on maternity leave this November. I agreed, and planned out this year to accomodate the time I would be spending subbing November-December. Normally they will only let a substitute work in one classroom for 30 consecutive days, but I was going to try to make arrangements with the district to cover the entire 12 weeks she was on leave.
I made it a point to keep in touch with the teacher, since she had asked me so far in advance. I wanted to establish to her that I was enthusiastic about helping out, and I figured it would be win-win (she’d have someone she already knew subbing her class, I’d get paid more for subbing in the same room for so many consecutive days). Last week she called me wanting to make arrangements to meet to go over lesson plans. I called her back a few days later, because my phone was clogged with voicemails (usually for other assignments) and didn’t realize a human being had called me recently. I agreed to meet her today to go over the lesson plans, and apologized for the slow response. The next day I got a call for a 2-week assignment, but I had to pass it up because it would conflict with my meeting and I didn’t want to risk trying to reschedule with the pregnant teacher.
To my shock, the pregnant teacher told me today that she had gone ahead and talked to another substitute, and was making arrangements for him to possibly sub the entire time :mad: This, after she had asked me MONTHS ago, making me decide to clear my own November/December schedule to accomodate her. Apparently when I took a few days to answer her voicemail, she panicked and thought I might not be able to do it, so she went ahead and called someone else. Exasperated, I explained that I had wanted to sub for her the whole time, hence why I had kept in touch with her (anytime I subbed at that school, I’d always be sure to pop in during prep/lunch just to give her a heads up) throughout the beginning of the school year. She apologized, and said she might still need me for the 2nd half of her leave if she couldn’t get this other guy to sub the whole time, and that it was ‘up in the air’ and she would call me sometime this week with an update. 
I’m rather pissed I didn’t answer that pivotal phone call, yet I still feel I got screwed over on this. I passed up many other things that time of year to sub for her, and I feel stupid for it now. This is the second 30-day assignment yanked out from under me, aside from several 2-week assignments offered/rescinded (Got an assignment to sub the first 2 weeks at a school, but they yanked it from me after only 1 day )
The worst part of this is that the district has a shortage of substitutes; for every opening I take 2-5 others go unfilled, causing schools to cancel classes, rotate existing subs, or merge classes together. I would think that kind of demand would work to my advantage, but I guess not :mad: