When reading through other blog postings of my colleagues this week, I find it interesting to hear so many say that there really isn't much conflict at their jobs.  My job feels like constant conflict.  I supervise a group of about 15 other women.  The conflict is rampant.  However, mostly it revolves around who is getting the most break time or office time.  Most of these teachers and aides are stuck in a classroom the entire day.  We are always so short staffed, that break time and office time has really become some kind of myth or legend that is often spoken of, but rarely seen.  While one group is "trapped" in their class, they imagine that the other group is in the teacher's lounge relaxing and really having a great time and getting lots of lesson plans and work caught up on.  This causes conflict between the classrooms.  They keep a close ear and eye out to see just how many minutes each person gets in the teacher's lounge each day and it is normally the subject of most of the complaints that find their way to my office.
     I have tried several different things to remedy this.  I tried doing scheduled break times and scheduled office times.  This was a huge pain because I would spend hours each week trying to figure out a schedule to ensure that each person got two fifteen minute breaks and also an office time.  Then, we would have call-ins and/or people quit, which always threw the schedule right out of the window.  I have even tried having volunteers come in just to give breaks.  No solution that I have seems to last more than a couple of days.  I have tried to convince the classes that their colleagues were in the same boats, but they didn't believe this.  I have tried hiring extra help for the afternoons to relieve staff and get them more office time, but those afternoon workers never stay more than a few weeks.  I have tried moving people around and re-arranging work schedules... nothing ever works out.
     This is frustrating to me because it seems so petty when I compare it to the other things that I have to do every day.  When I have parents coming to me because their child has been molested and I am meeting with children's services and police, and then teachers come in complaining that they only got a ten minute break instead of a fifteen minute break, I almost snap at them.  However, I try really hard to remember that it is not petty to them and that they do deserve to have office times and breaks.  I have just kind of started avoiding the topic and telling them just to do the best that they can do.  Until we can get fully staffed, there isn't a lot that we can do.
     After reading the course material this week, I feel like the answer and solution lies more with the staff members than with me.  They are looking to me for an answer that I don't have.  I need them to work together in order to realize that they are all in the same position.  I wonder if I need to have a meeting and have all of them communicate with each other and work together to brainstorm possible solutions.  Then, it wouldn't be so much about who wins and who looses, or who is getting their way.  Instead, they will be working together for a solution in which everyone is a winner.  If I can get them all communicating and brainstorming a broad range of solutions, then new ideas and solutions could arise from this conflict.  Who knows?  Any ideas?