stand up - stand up now
brother sister make a stand
stand up - stand up now
Last night I left school and found myself blocked in in the car park by a van belonging to a man that teaches pre-secondary school children judo. I tried to manouevre myself out but was unable to despite the vague attempt at parking diagonally by the Judo teacher. I was wedged in by his van behind me, the trailer on my left and another car quite tightly up against mine on the right. I went in to the sports hall to ask him to move his van. I know he was teaching, but it is my understanding that no one should park in the centre of our car park. Obviously he was unhappy about moving it because he was teaching and I did apologise when I asked him to move - not that I needed to as he was parked incorrectly. He was quite rude about it and made comments about how easy it should be to get out of the space - I totally disagree. I did try but felt that I couldn't get the car out safely - I normally manage in this situation through much backwarding and forwarding, but felt that I did not want to risk any damage to my car. I did feel that he was getting quite aggressive in his manner.
He began to cast aspersions about my driving abilities suggesting that I am a crap driver and perhaps I should take my test again. I jumped into my car and waved a "thank you" and drove off - obviously I didn't want to end up in any difficult situation with a judo expert!
I've since found out that the Punchy Judo Man, as I like to call him, has upset lots of people. This is including members of management. I guess the point of all this is to not suffer in silence. Such characters seem to get away with annoying many of us but if we don't talk these things through then little gets done.
I wrote to the Head of my school to complain - sending a copy to my Union Rep too just in case - and almost immediately, I've had responses from various members of the management team. Evidently, he's upset many people and if it carries on then he may lose the use of the school facilities. I don't usually complain but I'm not very happy about this man's attitude. I personally don't think this is a petty issue.
If I hadn't bothered, nothing would have been done.
There you go:
raise your banners high
strength to strength and line by line
unity must never die
raise your banners high
lyrics by John Tams
2 comments:
In the coarse language I was often required to employ (or at least tolerate) in my previous life, this bloke sounds like a complete and utter Tosser!. Well done for standing up to him. It seems to me that the fewer people that challenge such obnoxious behaviour, the greater immunity these people seem to think they have. More power to your elbow! I was going to introduce some seriously inappropriate comments about the use of PR 24's or ASP's (which are pretty useful 'defensive' weapons) and how they can 'sort out' even those who have too high opinion of themselves because they wear pyjamas with a black belt .....but I'd better not!
I must admit that I did think after this posting that using the struggle of Unions with my rather lesser struggle may come across as a bit crass. However, the amount of people - including management - that have been upset by the Punchy Judo Man suggest that I've caught the zeitgeist.
We are often too frightened to not "rock the boat" so these uncouth types get away with it.
Together we stand . . . and all that.
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