My Opinion Is...you really don't want to know

Since leaving teaching I have been receiving letters from a company called 'TalentDrain', who, it seems, are keen to know the reasons behind my leaving my post with Kent County Council. My reasons are 'valuable' and will apparently help them 'to better understand what's good and what could be improved in KCC school.' My input will remain 'entirely confidential' (in bold print) and if I give them 15 minutes of my time I can 'make a real and positive difference to the working lives of teachers in KCC schools.'

Well, for a start, 15 minutes isn't going to be nearly long enough for this fully paid up member of the Daily Mail Rantathon Society to say everything she wants to say. Also, as a fully paid up member of the 'Suspicious of Confidential Surveys Confederation' I am dubious that my views will actually remain confidential - after all, if they were, how come I keep getting letters asking me to fill in the survey? If it was confidential, they wouldn't know that I haven't bothered to do the survey already and have instead been consigning their letters to the shredder to recycle as chicken bedding, woudl they?

Also, I am a firm believer in telling it as it is, which means naming names, and although I know in my heart of hearts that naming names is an unpleasant thing to do, once I get a character assassination between my teeth, I really can't let go until it has been shredded to teeny tiny pieces, upon which I can sit like a self-satisfied naughty Jack Russell terrier puppy who has got hold of a particularly scrumptious cushion to wreck. This is why God had me born a Scorpio, an excellent confidante and keeper of secrets, but with a default setting which means once we start telling, we tell it all so don't blame us if you ask.

So, being older and wiser and having learned from previous mistakes, I have decided to ignore this offer to tell all, although I have played the format of my response over and over again in a highly satisfying internal monologue for my ears only. Let it be, I am now inclined to say. It matters not what happened in the past; the here and now is all that counts, and the here and now does not involve teaching. It does involve learning, however, and today has been pencilled in as 'STUDY DAY EXTRAORDINAIRE' as my course books have arrived and I am fair scared about the stuff I have to learn, retain and remember in order to qualify in reflexology.

And would you give your views to a company that calls itself 'TalentDrain?' God Lord, they could have come up with something better, something that doesn't have sewerage connotations. The 'Talent' bit is okay, because obviously they have to flatter people into completing their survey somehow, but 'Drain'? Did they not think? Did someone not mention the alternative meaning which connects plumbing to sewage? Did someone not suggest a more suitable alternative like 'Loss' or 'Exit' or 'The Good'un We Let Get Away?'

Ah well, bless them all. TalentDrain, KCC, surveys and the freedom to be 'honest and open' with our views. And the Director who signs these letters with a signature that makes him sound like he is called 'Bran Clolnideje.'