Next time you're having a bad day at work, stop and think for a moment.
Is it worse than mopping up vomit in a coach full of rowdy teenagers somewhere in the middle of Europe when you haven't slept for forty-eight hours?
There's been some media and blogger griping about the number of teachers stranded abroad this week, mostly in comments by people who obviously have no idea that a significant number of absent staff are in charge of school trips.
Imagine it - you've given up a week or more of your holiday (no extra pay for this, remember) to accompany a group of pupils abroad. Not only are you trying to ensure they have a worthwhile educational experience; you're on 24-hour call in case of emergencies and responsible for returning them to their parents with no injury, loss of baggage or little surprises in nine months' time.
And then comes the travel crisis. Suddenly your flight and relaxing Sunday night at home has been replaced with the coach journey from Hell - 29 hours of travelling with 50 overtired, stroppy travelsick teenagers (rule of thumb: if one throws up, five more will follow suit).
And since the coach drivers need overnight breaks, you and you colleagues have to spend two nights en route in grotty youth hostels, where you get no sleep because, after being cooped up in coaches all day, the pupils are ready to run riot.
And you finally arrive back, having run out of clean underwear somewhere near Rome and patience on the Munich ring road, to a barrage of criticism for your prolonged absence and the assumption that you spent your holiday sunning yourself on the Riviera.
