Lesson 2 - Grief, stop measuring it!
Grief, stop measuring it!
Stacey Salt
This morning (07/10/2022) I heard yet another story of a teacher experiencing the loss of someone close, it is irrelevant for me to say the title or place in their life they had, what is relevant is the feeling of losing a person who was close and had presence in their life for so many years. However, they have experienced such unkind and inhumane treatment at work from their manager and even their colleagues. Commenting on who the person was that had passed away, how much time they had taken and they had let their students down for taking time off. Unfortunately, this person had to take the time as sick because the college policies are so dated that unless it is someone of a title such as mother, father, child then it is insignificant in the time you need to grieve. I shared my thoughts via Twitter and as the day went one, felt compelled to share more depth on my experience.
Why do I have solidarity in their experience? Why have I totally felt it in my heart?
I experienced something very similar. Less than 12 months ago in fact...yes I am still grieving, but time has helped me get through the dark days. Late November 2021, I was at work, I had several missed calls from my sister, I knew it was something bad and deep down I knew it was related to Nanny Dot. I phoned her back and one of the kind people, who has remained kind, whizzed me to the nursing home. My Nanny was 89, lived with dementia for over ten years, seeing her deteriorate over time was hard and my family and I always felt it would not be long until she slipped away from us. When I arrived, me and my family was met by the doctor and told the inevitable, our Nanny only had a few days...she lasted 5 days until we watched her take her last breath.
In that 5 days, we moved into the nursing home and given a room to stay in so we could care for Nanny 24 hours, we wanted to do everything as our final duty to her as she had been our saviour growing up. We washed her, changed her, fed her...as a child I was always playing hairdresser, I did her hair and nails (she loved her nails painted). We sang and told stories from the old days, we did some art and decorated her room with a Christmas tree, tinsel and cards...we knew this was Nanny's last Christmas with us. We had a few drinks, Nanny loved Port and Sherry, although she was so sick she still managed a good few sips. In those last few days with Nanny we came together as a family, celebrated and had a really good time. At this point anything related to work was at the back of my mind, although I kept in regular contact with the manager. I didn't even go home, we stayed until the moment she had to leave.
At 5.10pm on the 3rd December Nanny Dot slipped away with us all there beside her, we stayed for a few hours, and in a strange way it was comforting. When we had to leave my world came crashing down and I realised actually that was the last time we would have that kind of fun with our Nanny.
At this point, I had taken 5 days off work, I was told 'it is probably best you come back in now, being busy will help you focus'. So off I went, back to work on 6th December. When you have worked somewhere for seven years with the same people, after experiencing something as heart-breaking as I did, I thought returning would probably help, being around 'friends' in a place where I am comfortable. I had not thought about the lack of condolences I received before stepping back in the building.
I was clearly upset, not slept and at my lowest when I went back to work, I went to the staff room...nothing! Colleagues I had worked with for years didn't even say 'How are you?' or 'I am really sorry for your loss'...nothing! There was already a toxicity in the department BUT everyone knew how close I was to my Nan, despite everything surely the kind and human thing to do is connect to that person. I remember walking off to my classroom, one of my then colleagues came in, I will not forget this moment, I was crying in the room because of the negativity, she came in and I explained what had got me, about people being heartless and not offering anything, not even an hello, her response 'well I can't remember if I said it, but ye sorry about your nan' then walked off! Honestly, I would have preferred nothing, my stomach dropped and I just thought what the hell am I doing here!
I went to explain what had happened to the manager, the negativity, the unkind and mean behaviour...his response 'you will just have to sort it out yourself'' I was literally sobbing stood in his office. My immediate reaction was 'I am going to take time off for bereavement' and he responded 'you don't get bereavement leave for just a grandma'. I remember these incidents far too clearly to this day. I ran back to my classroom, opened the HR site and the policy for bereavement...there it was in black and white, a week for a grandparent! So off I went, home to look after me and I took extra time than the week, I had to get a sick note for the additional week, because on the scale of bereavement a grandparent was not as important as a parent ... in this day and age, we all know that not to be true for everyone!
After Christmas I went back to work, thinking that by this point I do feel a lot better, although still grieving, felt better in my head...I also felt that time had passed and maybe the atmosphere at work would have settled. God was I wrong! The extent people had gone, to attack my personal situation was unreal. Rumours being spread about me 'milking it' that I had 'let students down' . I think the worst was this idea of the grief competition, 'I only had one day when my parent passed and she's had 3 weeks'. There was almost this ridiculous idea that the less time you have off for bereavement the more you are commended and appreciated, for turning up to work, in pain, in sadness, in loss, in longing - grief is not just one emotion that passes, it is an accumulation of emotions that manifest themselves in different ways, and as Brene Brown says "for a long time, we thought about the grief process in terms of linear stages, but almost all of the research actually refutes the idea that grief progresses is predictable, sequenced stages" (2021)
Through my experience and others sharing theirs, I am becoming more frustrated with how grief is seen in the workplace. The culture of 'the policy says this!' . The UK is culturally diverse, we all know that, and in different cultures people grieve in different ways for different people. The UK also has many different types of family groups, some are raised by aunts and uncles ... even family friends, some are adopted, some fostered. We live in a world were this needs addressing in policies for bereavement. In my situation, and many others, getting that policy out to check how much time is allowed for bereavement is in my view inhumane, there is inequality and inequity running through it...an organisation or policy can not determine how long grieving takes, and instead of measuring it why don't we focus on peoples feelings, changing the culture of being awarded for working through loss, instead allowing to feel loss and build themselves back up.
Don't get me wrong, there are people who genuinely feel that returning to work after a bereavement is what is right for them and that is absolutely fine, do what is right for you at your time. When I lost my son, Baby Jude, in March 2015 I was a student, in my final year and in full dissertation mode. At that time, my instinct was to carry on, work through it and get my degree complete - my circumstances were different then, my life was different and the support network at the Uni was brilliant. I finished my degree thinking I was fine. When it was done, boy did I feel it then, and it came crashing down on me so hard I went into a very dark place, one which I was not going to experience again after my Nanny passed. I knew myself that nothing good can always come from 'working through it' and I am glad I stayed true to myself, pushed work to the side and let myself grieve.
Now, with my critical head on delving deeper into this, What is the organisations thought process?
It pains me to answer this question and what I write does not mean I condone how FE staff are treated, but I feel it is important to explore a different perspective. The ripple effect of a teacher being off work in an FE college goes something like this.
Teacher is absent - no teacher for the students - other teachers have to double up (there aren't enough teachers as there is) - class sizes double - teachers become stressed, the workload is piling up - students aren't receiving enough quality time in the classroom - teachers get more stressed - marking piles up - pastoral duties pile up - students grades become affected - managers get frustrated - managers have KPI's to meet - more pressure is put on the teacher who is covering lots of classes - the department becomes fractured - SLT become frustrated because managers aren't meeting their department targets - grieving teacher returns - everyone is hostile to them - things have turned into a big mess - high grades deteriorate - SLT get worried about their targets, league tables, reputation, MONEY!
We could go on and on, weaving through these different elements from an organisational perspective but everything boils down to one thing money! Whether that be to do with student attrition or not spending money on providing enough teachers and having more humane strategies for looking after teachers in different circumstances. When you look at it like this, rather than blaming the grieving teacher for student progress, staff shortages...there is a whole bigger story and it doesn't stop at the organisation, we can look further to the Government. However, despite that, it is still important for managers to have empathy and compassion for employees, the human factor above money, reputation and KPI's is far more worthy than anything.
In my story, and my own personal ripple effect, this was just one of many negative experiences I had. But ultimately, I left the organisation, I got out and it was the best decision I ever made. I know, wholeheartedly, Nanny Dot would have been proud of how I handled the experience, she was definitely a nurturer, promoted that sense of having rest and not over doing it. Undoubtedly would have said 'don't bother with them, they are not worth it'
So let's ditch those bereavement hierarchies, the grief timelines...they actually only exist on a piece of paper, it is not real life.
For those grieving right now, this quote from Atlas of the Heart resonated so much for me and still does
'Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will
do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to.
In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love'
- Elizabeth Gilbert
Much love, take time, you matter xxx
***N.B. The experience I shared is my own from a previous FE college, I fully understand and aware that FE colleges are all different, and there are ones out there which are fabulous, supportive places to thrive despite anything.
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