Jeanie Bottle 571
Mar25
on March 25, 2020
at 10:52 pm
and modified on December 28, 2023. at 12:09 am
Chapter: Story 13: I Dream of Separation
(Moved Robert’s remarks to the comment area instead of the comic’s post, as it’s more of an opinion than a statement remark about the comic.)
Looks like Araceli & Caley are out with a group.
And you don’t want to mess with the person in charge of the group (She takes her job very seriously, apparently).
Dang, that teacher is a bitch.
EDIT: OK, since people have completely misread my intent here, I’m going to explain. YES, obviously the teacher’s job is to not release her kids into the custody of an unauthorized person. But after that exchange, she had no need to scream “SECURITY!” at the top of her lungs, in a way that convinces the guards that this guy is here with ill intent, such that they physically assault him.
Discharging her duty to the children in that way, instead of, say, asking Jake to call Aaron’s parents so they can give vocal consent, is what makes her a flaming hyper-bitch.
This is the post comment Robert made with the comic earlier. I moved it to the comments, as it’s more an opinion then a comic post.
-CD Rudd
Calling security was the right move to make. Again, teachers cannot release children into the custody of adults that are not on the paperwork. As he was making a scene about it, in a public place, calling security was absolutely the right call. She did this, because from experience, these types of scenarios go one of three ways: The adult understands and withdraws, typically to call the primary caregiver of the child and then returns with permission; the adult simply leaves entirely; or becomes hostile and attempts to bully, force or otherwise take the child from the teacher.
She called security because in the event that the man was to become hostile, she has support.
You can say ‘but but but what gives her the right to have security rough house him?’, but all she did was CALL security. They’re the ones that made the choice to use physical force on him, in which case those security guards should be reprimanded for not attempting to diffuse the situation verbally beforehand. He should have only been removed by force should he had resisted and failed to comply with their request.
The teacher has done absolutely NOTHING wrong in this comic, not even calling for security.
And he didnt want to take the child with him, he wanted to acompany the child inside a facility with hightend security which had a spy case in the not so far distance.
You need to reread the comic. “Only pre-approved parents and guardians are permitted to escort the children!” Pre-approved, meaning he couldn’t have gone and gotten permission from anyone. It was completely ruled out from the start by her, meaning that one of your scenarios was not possible under the circumstances.
It was appropriate not to release that child into his custody under the circumstances, but it was not appropriate to draw that particular line in the sand and say “you must have been pre-approved or no go”. Even you acknowledged it with your statement that one of the ways this could have gone is to withdraw, get permission, and come back. But with what she said, even if he had done that, it wouldn’t have done any good.
She’s not really in the right here and if I were in “Uncle Jake’s” shoes, I would be thinking about a legal remedy at this point.
Yup. As I was once told a long time ago, better to call for backup early and apologise later if necessary than call for backup late and have to deal with the emergency caused by the delay.
All right Doc, let me ask you this, since you are a teacher.
Is it protocol to call security after the one in question has spoken two sentences both out of confusion that what they were told isn’t true?
Is it protocol to not check that you are correct in saying they aren’t on the approved list?
Is it protocol to force a child to watch a family member get the crap kicked out of them because you’re too lazy to check the god damn list?
I have to say I’m on the teacher overreacting side. She didn’t even check the list to see if he was actually pre-approved which he may have been as the parents presumably know about the pre-approval and that he’s coming. She just went “I don’t know you, security”. I work in a government job where we have minimal contact with public (may be working in an area with them) and we get training on how not to escalate things and avoid conflict till someone with more training shows up to deal with a situation. This is NOT the right way to deal with things.
I do think your comic commentary was a bit inappropriate, Robert. Your intent is clear only to you; other people are not going to be able to tell just from reading what you mean.
That being said, you are correct that this teacher overreacted here. It was not appropriate for her to state that he had to be on the pre-approved list in order to take custody of the child. Stating that he had to be on the approved list, sure. I don’t think anyone is going to argue otherwise. But stating that he had to be pre-approved means that it doesn’t matter what he does – she’s not going to release that child into his custody under any circumstances.
Furthermore, she called security on him after maybe fifteen seconds had elapsed. That’s a pretty serious escalation on her part, given that his responses until then were stating that he was the child’s uncle and that the parents knew he was coming. At the very least, she should have warned him that she would be calling security before actually calling them. I don’t know many people who would react to being told that they weren’t on the approved list when they fully expected to be by politely agreeing and walking away. Even someone who was there legitimately would react with confusion.
And furthermore, security was obviously close enough to respond within seconds, given that he actually cut off mid-sentence like that. I don’t actually blame the security guards for moving to restrain him – that’s their jobs, and given that she clearly yelled out for them, it’s better for them to restrain first and ask questions second. But I’m actually beginning to question her judgment at this point, given she went from “polite statement” to “sharp statement” to “calling for security”. There’s at least two steps missing there – asking him to leave/back away, and warning him that she would call for security if he did not.
I fully agree Robert, that teacher is what we call, where I’m from, a mega-bitch.
Reasons why:
1) instead of asking for ID to check against the list of approved guardians she just says he isn’t and pulls the child away.
2) the child clearly knows the man and even seems happy to see him (probably means they have a good relationship with the child and parents)
3) mega-bitch immediately calls security and has him dragged to the ground in front of the child, after about 2 sentences from the Uncle. Both of which just give an “I’m confused” vibe.
1) We are talking about a pre-approved list here. This means (at least where im from)it is a list where parents/guardians have to sign themselves in to a list in person which then gets send to the organisation (in our case NASA) 4 to 6 weeks in advance to the trip. There they check every single person on the list and send it back roughly 2 weeks before the visit. Usually you take 1 adult per 4 to 5 children along for the trip. That means 4 to 6 adults which have signed the list in front of the teacher. Thats a number you remember even without checking the list.
2) That the child knows the Uncle and seems happy to see him does mean nothing in our context. Even children who suffer violent abuse by familymembers would react in a similar way in many cases. We don’t know the family background of the child, unless the teacher. I worked with enough abused child’s to know that it is a valid reaction depending on the family circumstances.
3) We saw her call security. But i still miss the speechbubble where she tells the security to drag him down. Their reaction is entirely up to the security themselves. Heck, normaly facilitys which pre-approved visitor lists would have sent security personel to the bus to welcome the trip and check the visitors alongside the teacher and hand out visitor badges for the adults with their name one it. And while they are usually a friendly bunch they won’t take kindly to people who lack a badge and want to enter.
something tells me that teacher and Uncle Jake had a bad night 1 time.
Teachers are not allowed to release students to anyone that is not authorized by the parent or primary caregiver on the paperwork. It doesn’t matter if she knows he’s the kid’s uncle or not, if he’s not on the paperwork, then she cannot let him take the student. To do so would end up with her fired, and and most likely never able to get a job in the education field again.
As a teacher myself, I find that Robert calling her a ‘bitch’ in the commentary to be incredibly ignorant and highly offensive.
I agree with Contact_Lost that the teacher is not allowed to allow anyone not on the list access to the children. Just because the child knows the adult, does not make it alright to the law or her employer if they find out. Children have been released into the custody of family members before not on allowed lists and just disappeared. She was doing her job, something that some parents may wish had been done in their missing/injured child’s case.
Refusing to allow him is one thing, but sending the security guards to rough him up is a bit overdone.
> Teachers are not allowed to release students to anyone that is not authorized by the parent or primary caregiver on the paperwork.
Yeah, of course. But she’s a bitch because of how she went about not releasing Aaron into Jake’s custody. Calling security on the man, after he’d done nothing but try to explain who he is, in a way that convinces security to physically assault him is a bitch thing to do. No two ways about it.
But surely it would be safe to release the child to the custody of their catholic priest
Robert – The choice to call for security is purely on whether on not she could hold him in a fight or if she’d need assistance. If she could properly be called a bitch or not is depending on if she can explain well enough without resorting to anything petty.
I’ll be interested to see how the next comic comes out and whether there is any sequence to the scene. It may be tough to make sure to get both sides point of view as well as the officers decision and the aftermath
Why the hell would you assume that any sort of physical altercation would occur between Jake and the teacher? Adults use their words, like what Jake was *trying* to do before the teacher sicced the guards on him.
Most of the time adults use there words, but, it can also escalate into something physical in a very short time. So I am going to agree with everyone that say that calling was security was right move to prevent it getting out of hand and escalating to something physical
If Jake wanted to come with his nephew to a NASA School Tour, then he should have gone through the appropriate channel and set it up with both the school board and with the Parents of Jake nephew, that is definitely a failure on Jake part, where it was intentional or unintentional, it all Jake fault. He should not have snuck onto that bus without having it already approve by those other two party, not negotiable.
But, I am still saying that there something spooky about Jake and how he got onto the school bus and how he avoided detection before this time or maybe this was the first time that the teacher could call for assistance. Don’t Know!
I agree that it seems more the security guard fault than the teacher, although maybe better communication between the teacher and the guard could help.
Well, she is in charge of the whole tour group and those childrens’ welfare. If her job requires her to follow certain rules of whose allowed to be around them, she has to follow them. I don’t think she’s being a bitch for doing her job properly, even if others wouldn’t like it.
Exactly, she has her own rules to follow, she cannot release any student to an adult that is not cleared on the paperwork that she has. So as a teacher myself, seeing Robert call her a ‘bitch’ simply for doing her job is insulting in the extreme.
Teacher is just doing her job and making sure the students are safe good job. Also Aracelia has a guy who is now intrseted give him a chance cause Nei is just not into you at all.
Exactly, she’s doing her job and keeping the student safe, as she cannot release him to anyone that is not on the paperwork. Thus why it’s pretty infuriating, as a teacher, to see her get called a ‘bitch’ simply for doing her job.
Araceli does have someone pining onto her, but I think she’ll be more focused on another old pursuit at the moment. Hard to tell if she’s looking disapprovingly on the teacher-uncle situation or on the human that asked her out for a date.
My take on this is that she is either being too harsh or she know Jake or possibly his reputation and she know that she doesn’t want his influence on the children good or bad. That there some something going on that we don’t know about prior to this confrontation with the teacher.
As a general rule when you have a bunch of children, you would welcome another responsible adult to help keep track of the kids. Which make me wonder if Jake a responsible adult.
And as a teacher, she CANNOT release the child into the custody of an adult without the consent of the primary parent or caregiver, even if she KNOWS the guy personally. If she released the kid to him, she’d be violating the law and end up being fired from her position, and most likely never able to have a job in the field of education again.
Teachers CANNOT, under law, release children to any adult that is not on the pick up or drop off list. It doesn’t even matter if we KNOW to the person, if they’re not approved then for the child’s safety and the safety of our jobs, we cannot and will not release a student into their custody.
As a teacher, I think your comment in the commentary is entirely uncalled for, Robert. Even if she is just a one-off character in a webcomic, she’s still being portrayed as doing her job. Calling her a ‘bitch’ is completely over the line.
Spamming your outrage in the commentary is over the line, too.
There does not seem to be any questions of “releasing” the child to him. He just said hello, and seemed like he was going to walk with the tour group. Now even that could be questionable, however he also works there. I don’t question the teacher calling security as a precaution, but the security people may be over-reacting.
He’s wearing a T-shirt and the place seems to have an employee dress code. Note that in the past both Neil and Rodge wore ties. No, I don’t think Jake works there.
Just call this kid’s mom and ask her about the uncle. This little problem could be solved without security.
Joyce and Vik, I understand your sentiment and this may have been able to be resolved without any incident. What this teacher did, while harsh, was proper to ensure the child’s safety.
There could most definitely be a possibility of the ‘Uncle’ (whether she knew him or not) could run off with the kid while she was distracted with the phone call. Calling security was the right thing to do, she could also explain the situation as the officer arrives on the scene.
In my opinion, the teacher did not act inappropriately at all.
@Vaullus It’s like the dispute between the “letter of the law” and the “spirit of the law”.
@Vaullus – Sorry, I have to disagree. Calling security on him without giving him a warning was inappropriate and arguably legally actionable. Obviously, the teacher allowing someone who wasn’t on her list to serve as a caretaker would have definitely been legally actionable, but this isn’t a situation where anyone should be claiming that her behavior was completely appropriate.
Consider the fact that she claimed he had to be on the “pre-approved list”, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to have actually made an effort to verify whether he was in fact on said list, and the fact that the child in question recognized him and called him by name, and it’s clear that she unnecessarily escalated the situation, subjecting an apparent relative of the child in question to being forcibly restrained in front of said child.
The fact that she could justify calling on security like that doesn’t mean she was necessarily right to do so. There were ways she could have handled that that would not have involved her summoning security that quickly.
There’s quite a cast in today’s comic, most have names:
* Uncle Jake in Panels 2 and 3
* Nephew Aaron in Panels 2 and 3
* Dominic, who knows Caley in Panel 1
* Caley, who knows Dominic in Panel 1
* Unnamed Teacher-in-Charge Panels 2 and 3
* Araceli in Panels 1 and 4
* Unnamed Man in Panels 1 and 4
The Unnamed Man who makes a pass at Araceli in Panel 1 might or not be another relative, but since he knows Araceli’s name, he probably came on the same bus from Orlando and wouldn’t been let aboard unless he was authorized. Or he might be the driver of the bus, and since he was making a pass at an adult, not a child under the authority of the Teacher-in-Charge, it isn’t as likely to be dragged away by security–generally bus drivers have better unions than your run-of-the-mill uncle. Possibly Unidentified Man will be identified later. But if you’ve read Sailormoon.org, you know how long it took for Auction Guy to get a name.
@Larry: Probably Uncle Jake is more responsible than Uncle Roger. If Roger was in this comic, I wouldn’t rule out him making a pass at Teacher-in-Charge.
@Willis: Rodge is the one that’s far more likely to have had 1 bad night with Teacher-in-Charge. After all, Uncle Jake hasn’t made a pass at anyone.
I have a possible plot hook for Unnamed Man. If he is the driver, and Teacher-in-Charge manages to get him arrested, it could strand everyone else, giving an excuse for Caley and Araceli to hang around longer, providing more opportunity for them to cause trouble for Rodge and Neil.
The teacher isn’t being a “bitch”. She’s just following the rules. If anything the kids parents are at fault for not informing the kid’s school that his uncle would be picking him up.
Geese its a frigging cartoon people chill
Am I the only one who reacted the same way as Robert? The moment I read the word security, I was almost in shock. She could’ve sent him back home or just not let him take the child. He didn’t show any sign that he was a danger to anyone. There was no reason to call security even if her job is to only release the child into authorized custody.
Finally, someone with some common f*$%ing sense.
Thing is, he is not trying to take the child home (which in itself is very problematic if hes not on the list), he wants to accompany the kid as a guardian inside. And its a military institution with a high security standarts under normal circumstances. But they had a spy in there just recently which probaly rose the security standarts even higher.
Its reasonly to assume she is required by NASA to call security as soon as someone not on the list trys to enter in such a way. So no, calling her a bitch for doing so on Roberts part is more then wrong.
This is the difference between America and Denmark, ye don’t know the meaning of the word: Konduite
@Alastir: Google translate says the Danish “konduite” means “discerning” in English. I assume there are connotations that make that word appropriate for this comic, but I don’t know what they are.
I am not sure how well that translation is. Konduite refers to ones ability to act according to the spirit of the law, rather than simply the letter. For instance, the spirit of the pre approved list is to keep children safe. But such a list is not meant to be inflexible, people are not meant to act like robots. Acting with konduite is making exceptions to the letter of the law in order to obey its spirit.
In other words as the child clearly knows him he is not a stranger and if she wanted to be absolutely sure she could call his parents.
In my country showing such lack of konduite is frown upon and she would likely be suspended
I think we can be generous and suggest security is being very tightly controlled as this is a military base. A tour requires the right paperwork..
Though yes the kid clearly knows him so the woman should exercise some common sense but maybe shes simply following an order. That being said watching your uncle being dragged away could be traumatic for the child too..
Most kidnappings happen by someone the child knows, so it’s perfectly reasonable to not allow the child to go with him if we isn’t approved
Not allowing the child to get close and call security on him should get her fired though
It should’nt get her fired. Please remember that they are at an military base at the momemt with, i assume, pretty high security standarts. And there is a man she does clearly not know who has not shown her any ID trying to get close to one of the kids she is in charge of. Even if the kid does know him a significant majority of child abuse/abduction is conducted by persons the kids know. Even under normal circumstances it is her job not to let persons she does not know and who dont show their id to her close to the kids. And under hightend security standarts? It may even be required of her to call for security the moment he started arguing in this situation.
I would agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that the teacher is the one to get belligerent, while he mostly seems confused
Also, she physically held the child behind her the moment he showed up, as far as she knows, he could work there
It’s not unreasonable to interpret this as the teacher looking for an excuse to abuse her power
And there is a difference between saying “can we get security over here to oversee this situation” and just shouting “SECURITY!” out of the blue like that
But you’re right, maybe firing her is too much
Hm… I think the concerning thing I have is how many think it is ‘okay’ to assume the absolute worst in the name of protecting her charge. Yes it is important but.. some observations: The thing is there is no threat here at the moment. The child is in her custody and remains so, the man has made no move to use force only to explain the situation. The child has acknowledged knowing him. A phone call is probably all that is needed to get confirmation.
How is the child going to be happy knowing the person in charge of her just took away her uncle too? What if he starts crying now because he no longer feels safe?
So yes,.. she has over-reacted. She could have discreetly called security if she had some grounds or concerns rather then use force.
And the security guys are just allowed to rough him up in public?
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That sounds like an awesome job! Where do I sign up?
As a grandparent I was not allowed to pick up my grandson after school until my daughter-in-law put me on the pick up list. Sorry Robert but the teachers are right on this one. She should have yelled “Hey Rube” and then twenty five clowns would have jumped out of a Volkswagen bug and gur-thumped on him .At first I thought the man in panel one was Rodge but he does’t have a tag.
The man in the red shirt in panels 1 and 2. Single dad, divorced dad or just a married man trying to hit on a cute babysitter when wife is not around? Jake, whenever a teacher looks over her glasses at you like that –RUN, it is not going to be pleasant.
That teacher’s a real bitch! Holy shit!
Next chapter NOW please.
Yes, Tuesday can’t arrive soon enough.
Robert–cheer up, Teachers are authority figures. A kindergarden teacher can have a cop shaking in his boots.
He looks suspicious. Get the taser!
“Don’t taze me Bro!”
Do they actually have security officers there?
There at the gates of Cape Canaveral Space Center, of course there going to have security officer or guards, that a given.
Most horrorifing thing I can think of for Robert is to make him adopt Baby Blue and raise a teenage daughter. Sorry bout that Robert.
Are you mixing up Robert with Roger?
Robert comes in two versions: Real-life comic editor for CD, and comic character. Robert-the-character is facing his own horrifying situation.
I do not believe that our Robert has any children so he has no experience with teachers. Raising Baby Blue would really give him an education.
How do you know it’s the teacher who called Security. From what I’ve heard, Disneyworld calls security very quickly and and anyone who appears to be in a questionable situation can find themselves surrounded by security within a few seconds. You also don’t know if that’s the start of the conversation with the teacher. By the way, have you seen the amount of security at the entrance to buildings of the Smithsonian Institute? It’s pretty heavy.
A lot of the museum guards work on the principle of separate everyone immediately and offer regrets for the inconvenience afterwards, if necessary. Not apologies, just regrets.
I can only imagine what would of happened to uncle Jake if Araceli had stepped in.
I’ve been thinking about this comic page for several days now, and I think CD has absolutely got it right! No matter what we readers think, the characters have a job to entertain us, and they must endure being slapstick victims, performing pratfalls, and whatever is the comic equivalent of getting hit in the face with a pie.
In other words, Jake HAD to get whacked in the head because it was funny!