Eric my friend - I too told it like it is.

I'm no yuppie (unless yuppies shop at KwikSave and spend their holidays in a tent in the rain in Scotland, and unless you and your teacher colleagues with whom my salary roughly equates can be classed as yuppies too). I say this because your English Comprehension skills are clearly lacking - you appear to have misinterpreted my first scenario as truth and my second scenario as fantasy. Sorry if ironic humour is beyond you, but it was a lighthearted attempt to get you to see that you're not alone - lots of people in other occupations suffer strenuous demands that are placed on them by the job but they don't expect to be treated as 'special cases' all the time.

Nowhere in my post did I say that any of the stuff in your post wasn't true - merely that you're not the only ones whose occupation involves long working hours, a great deal of stress and financial rewards that, at best, can only be described as modest. I'm sympathetic towards virtually all of what you said in your earlier posting, and I've experienced much of it personally, having been a youth worker for eleven years (sorry, forgot to mention that I did part-time youth work at a centre on a school campus a couple of evenings a week when my kids were young, because my accountants salary wouldn't stretch to feeding and clothing them) and I too have worked with drug-addicts, thieves, abused children (and their abusers) and scrotes of all descriptions. You just missed the point.

Neither did I insult or abuse you personally. I was simply stating the case that the grass on the other side isn't always quite as green as some seem to think it is. Us non-teachers have grouses too.

I don't have a sad life - I'm happy in my work (demanding though it is), I have a lovely wife and I appreciate the good things (yes, there are some!) that life has sent my way. I'm not angry, I'm knackered but happy.

From your post, however, you're clearly full of anger at the injustices which you perceive as being heaped on you by virtue of your occupation, and if insulting me because I have the audacity to have a different point of view to you makes you feel better then Be My Guest. It's not my fault you feel that way, but maybe you need to ask a few questions of yourself?