It is that time of the year again, yes, it is pink slip mailing time and the angst is a'flowing fast and wild these days. For those that may not know, I work in large educational bureaucracy in northern California. I've been laid off every year I've been here and then re-hired, in some fashion or another, later on each year.
The system is, in a word, broken. In more words, it is based off nothing beyond seniority. This makes sense since the people who wrote the CBA's were the most senior ones and wanted the most security. But the system does a massive disservice to our customers who just happen to be children.
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
1.23.2009
Job Minimality
My job is, quite literally, on the line again. Along with a whole host of support staff in the school district. Something about a nearly $20 million shortfall over the next 18 months to two years.
We are looking at some serious cutbacks including the removal of all sports programs, half of the custodial staff, closing of all libraries and a freeze on any computer lab installations (and likely the loss of computer room teachers). Which, of course, bodes horribly for the education of our children but it seems that turning out a well-rounded and capable student is the least of Governor Meathead's priorities. He seems to favor prisons over schools, primarily because it offsets the costs for a dozen years or so.
Anyway, people are struggling to keep their jobs. Or, most people are struggling to keep their jobs. Some people I work with tangentally do the absolute minimum they can do to keep from being sanctioned and, eventually, fired. And sometimes they don't even do that.
It kind of blows my mind to know that there are people who's job it is to collect trash and vacuum rooms and they just don't do it. They skip rooms entirely for days and weeks at a time. Or they collect the trash only to deposit it in the trashcan just outside the door.
The school system already has an enormous number of stupidities in it that keep it from running efficiently and adding into it disgruntled or just plain unmotivated workers adds even more drag to the whole system. And, in the end, it does an even greater disservice to the children in the system.
We are looking at some serious cutbacks including the removal of all sports programs, half of the custodial staff, closing of all libraries and a freeze on any computer lab installations (and likely the loss of computer room teachers). Which, of course, bodes horribly for the education of our children but it seems that turning out a well-rounded and capable student is the least of Governor Meathead's priorities. He seems to favor prisons over schools, primarily because it offsets the costs for a dozen years or so.
Anyway, people are struggling to keep their jobs. Or, most people are struggling to keep their jobs. Some people I work with tangentally do the absolute minimum they can do to keep from being sanctioned and, eventually, fired. And sometimes they don't even do that.
It kind of blows my mind to know that there are people who's job it is to collect trash and vacuum rooms and they just don't do it. They skip rooms entirely for days and weeks at a time. Or they collect the trash only to deposit it in the trashcan just outside the door.
The school system already has an enormous number of stupidities in it that keep it from running efficiently and adding into it disgruntled or just plain unmotivated workers adds even more drag to the whole system. And, in the end, it does an even greater disservice to the children in the system.
9.04.2008
Disgruntled
This might not make a whole lot of sense, it doesn't to me, but just try to nod along every so often and maybe it'll magically end up at something resembling an understanding.
So I just had my five month review, supposedly two months after I'd become a permanent employee with six months of service. Did that make sense? Maybe not. Let me slow down a moment.
I was hired on a full-time basis by the school district on the 5th of February. Previous to this, I'd been a temp. According to my obviously flawed mathematical reasoning, six months after February 5th is July 5th but via the use of the maddeningly obtuse bureaucratic mathematics, six months after February 5th is November 1st.
Does that make the slightest bit of sense to you because it doesn't make any sense to me at all.
What it breaks down to is six months of work is 130 working days. I need to go back through my calendar and see exactly how it really breaks down but, how I see it, the district gets an extra three months of keeping me at a lower pay scale through some creative accounting.
And, in the process, they have gone a long way to convincing me that I need to ramp up and turbo-size and afterburner-ize and supercharge my job hunt for a real job without the stupid ass bullshit bureaucratic hoops to bash up against.
In addition to all of this, I found out that I'm not allowed to take the after hours support job at one of the other schools because of union and payroll problems. It is actually illegal (not sure if that's law or union laws) for a school to hire me as a contractor for the same position I currently hold. Which is, to say, I am unable to earn additional money on my free time.
To call me a disgruntled and pissed off drone is massive understatement.
The problem with all of this is that the bureaucracy tends to weed out better employees through the application of stupid policies like these. Because a better employee has more options available to them and crappier employees do not. Once a crappy employee is entrenched in their position, they are all but impossible to remove and all but impossible to get them to do their job effectively because they have no incentive to do so. They get paid almost no matter what they do even if what they do is absolutely nothing at all.
However, in a depressed economy, decent jobs are harder to come by and the competition for them is substantially harder. But something in this situation has got to give, I just hope it isn't my sanity.
So I just had my five month review, supposedly two months after I'd become a permanent employee with six months of service. Did that make sense? Maybe not. Let me slow down a moment.
I was hired on a full-time basis by the school district on the 5th of February. Previous to this, I'd been a temp. According to my obviously flawed mathematical reasoning, six months after February 5th is July 5th but via the use of the maddeningly obtuse bureaucratic mathematics, six months after February 5th is November 1st.
Does that make the slightest bit of sense to you because it doesn't make any sense to me at all.
What it breaks down to is six months of work is 130 working days. I need to go back through my calendar and see exactly how it really breaks down but, how I see it, the district gets an extra three months of keeping me at a lower pay scale through some creative accounting.
And, in the process, they have gone a long way to convincing me that I need to ramp up and turbo-size and afterburner-ize and supercharge my job hunt for a real job without the stupid ass bullshit bureaucratic hoops to bash up against.
In addition to all of this, I found out that I'm not allowed to take the after hours support job at one of the other schools because of union and payroll problems. It is actually illegal (not sure if that's law or union laws) for a school to hire me as a contractor for the same position I currently hold. Which is, to say, I am unable to earn additional money on my free time.
To call me a disgruntled and pissed off drone is massive understatement.
The problem with all of this is that the bureaucracy tends to weed out better employees through the application of stupid policies like these. Because a better employee has more options available to them and crappier employees do not. Once a crappy employee is entrenched in their position, they are all but impossible to remove and all but impossible to get them to do their job effectively because they have no incentive to do so. They get paid almost no matter what they do even if what they do is absolutely nothing at all.
However, in a depressed economy, decent jobs are harder to come by and the competition for them is substantially harder. But something in this situation has got to give, I just hope it isn't my sanity.
8.29.2008
Dueling Tasklists
I have, at this moment, four local schools depending on me to maintain and upgrade their campus technology. What this means is that I have four competing tasklists each with high priority items.
And every day I go to a different site, reload for a whole new set of problems, teachers, students and support staff. And everyday I have to reset my expectations for what I might be able to accomplish.
My tasklists are dependent on more than just me to complete items and therein lies the rub. When I am at a site once a week, I need my support tech to actually respond and help me get things sorted out on-site. Otherwise things sit for another week and another week and another week. Which does nothing for my credibility at the site even though it isn't my fault I can't get my support tech out to the site to, you know, support me.
I know my support techs are even busier than I am and I try to cut them as much slack as possible. But I can count, on one hand, the number of times one has said they will be at my site at a certain and they have actually shown up. This is a problem.
Especially when I know they are compulsive email checkers and never let their cellphones get more than five feet away. I know they are getting the messages, they are just choosing to not respond immediately and keep doing whatever it is they are doing.
I don't necessarily blame them but it gets a little hard not to when you're asking for the same support assistance again and again and again.
I like working with the schools, I like what I do but I really dislike having to labor in a dysfunctional bureaucracy that attempts to squeeze too much out of everyone in it and leaves too many too drained to actually do their jobs.
And every day I go to a different site, reload for a whole new set of problems, teachers, students and support staff. And everyday I have to reset my expectations for what I might be able to accomplish.
My tasklists are dependent on more than just me to complete items and therein lies the rub. When I am at a site once a week, I need my support tech to actually respond and help me get things sorted out on-site. Otherwise things sit for another week and another week and another week. Which does nothing for my credibility at the site even though it isn't my fault I can't get my support tech out to the site to, you know, support me.
I know my support techs are even busier than I am and I try to cut them as much slack as possible. But I can count, on one hand, the number of times one has said they will be at my site at a certain and they have actually shown up. This is a problem.
Especially when I know they are compulsive email checkers and never let their cellphones get more than five feet away. I know they are getting the messages, they are just choosing to not respond immediately and keep doing whatever it is they are doing.
I don't necessarily blame them but it gets a little hard not to when you're asking for the same support assistance again and again and again.
I like working with the schools, I like what I do but I really dislike having to labor in a dysfunctional bureaucracy that attempts to squeeze too much out of everyone in it and leaves too many too drained to actually do their jobs.
6.03.2008
Winding Down and Out
There are three full days of school left in the school year here in my district. And then three and a half weeks of project work on-site before I become unemployed, again.
Each of my schools is a constant flurry of activity, cleaning desks, classrooms, events, graduation ceremonies, retirement parties, thank you parties and the frenzied attempts to wrap up projects before they fall apart until the fall.
From my own perspective, I can see how broken the system is, how badly the patches are holding to keep the entire school district from descending into chaos. It does not make me look forward to my own children entering this incredibly flawed and stumbling bureaucratic clusterfuck.
Don't misunderstand me, the people I've worked with, by and large, have been outstanding individuals toiling under difficult circumstances to deliver as much education to the children in the system as possible. It isn't the teachers, staff or support staff. Its the bureaucratic swamp they all have to toil in with ever shrinking budgets and ever growing classes.
I am of several minds in regards to my pending layoff. I'm seeing it as the closing of this chapter of my life, my short stint working in education and getting a close up look at how it works (or doesn't). I'm seeing it as an opportunity to go back into the private sector and make real money again with merit bonuses, raises and no ridiculous union rules keeping shitty workers on the books and forcing better but less senior workers out the door.
This week has been bittersweet and I expect it will continue until school lets out and everyone moves on to their summer schedule.
Each of my schools is a constant flurry of activity, cleaning desks, classrooms, events, graduation ceremonies, retirement parties, thank you parties and the frenzied attempts to wrap up projects before they fall apart until the fall.
From my own perspective, I can see how broken the system is, how badly the patches are holding to keep the entire school district from descending into chaos. It does not make me look forward to my own children entering this incredibly flawed and stumbling bureaucratic clusterfuck.
Don't misunderstand me, the people I've worked with, by and large, have been outstanding individuals toiling under difficult circumstances to deliver as much education to the children in the system as possible. It isn't the teachers, staff or support staff. Its the bureaucratic swamp they all have to toil in with ever shrinking budgets and ever growing classes.
I am of several minds in regards to my pending layoff. I'm seeing it as the closing of this chapter of my life, my short stint working in education and getting a close up look at how it works (or doesn't). I'm seeing it as an opportunity to go back into the private sector and make real money again with merit bonuses, raises and no ridiculous union rules keeping shitty workers on the books and forcing better but less senior workers out the door.
This week has been bittersweet and I expect it will continue until school lets out and everyone moves on to their summer schedule.
4.14.2008
Bureaucratic Inertia
I am a very small part of an enormous academic machine that serves the Pajaro Valley. We educate thousands upon thousands of students, support hundreds and thousands of teachers, keep thousands of computers up and running as best we can and operate under ever-decreasing budgets and looming pink slips.
It isn't an easy or fun situation from time to time. The inertia of the machinery can become as much of a burden as the mental toll of coping with the bombardment of help requests from, well, everyone.
But the situation is exacerbated by internal inertia, general crankiness and worker bees doing almost nothing but filling up their seats and pushing ever closer to retirement and the benefits promised for a lifetime of "service" that ended ten years ago.
I have limited experience in the system but I have a decent body of experience from the professional world to compare and contrast to. For what is standard practice in this educational bureaucracy would get you shit canned in a New York minute. Things are just basic common courtesy are lost in the joy that is a bureaucracy based on absolutely nothing beyond seniority. Not job performance, not response times, not anything but how long your ass has been filling your seat.
Which means that there will always be cranky people approaching retirement who are literally in their job for no other reason than to run out the clock. Which means that they couldn't give a damn about doing a good job, they just show up, duff through their day and go home and ignore the parts of their job that require them to do actual work.
And I know that I need to adjust my expectations are I will go completely insane. But I want to get a few minutes with my boss to properly set my expectations in line with his. That way, when another codger dodges my support requests, I'll kick it up the chain per my boss's procedures.
But hey, I did just invent a new word to describe what its like trying to work in a bureaucracy (and no, not the easily made up bureaucrazy). Unertia - the non-movement one finds in trying to get small changes cleared in a bureaucracy.
It isn't an easy or fun situation from time to time. The inertia of the machinery can become as much of a burden as the mental toll of coping with the bombardment of help requests from, well, everyone.
But the situation is exacerbated by internal inertia, general crankiness and worker bees doing almost nothing but filling up their seats and pushing ever closer to retirement and the benefits promised for a lifetime of "service" that ended ten years ago.
I have limited experience in the system but I have a decent body of experience from the professional world to compare and contrast to. For what is standard practice in this educational bureaucracy would get you shit canned in a New York minute. Things are just basic common courtesy are lost in the joy that is a bureaucracy based on absolutely nothing beyond seniority. Not job performance, not response times, not anything but how long your ass has been filling your seat.
Which means that there will always be cranky people approaching retirement who are literally in their job for no other reason than to run out the clock. Which means that they couldn't give a damn about doing a good job, they just show up, duff through their day and go home and ignore the parts of their job that require them to do actual work.
And I know that I need to adjust my expectations are I will go completely insane. But I want to get a few minutes with my boss to properly set my expectations in line with his. That way, when another codger dodges my support requests, I'll kick it up the chain per my boss's procedures.
But hey, I did just invent a new word to describe what its like trying to work in a bureaucracy (and no, not the easily made up bureaucrazy). Unertia - the non-movement one finds in trying to get small changes cleared in a bureaucracy.
12.19.2007
A Future Union Grunt's Perspective
If all goes according to plans, I'll be a unionized employee of the school district in a few weeks. Which definitely has some quality perks to it and I'm looking forward to having them. But gaining an understanding of the impact of the union on positions within the district makes me question the uncommon goals of the educational system and the union that represents the workers.
Uncommon meaning that the educational system has a goal of graduating every child with a certain level of skills. The union has a goal of getting as much as possible for the workers it represents. And affording those workers a strange sense of job security even if they happen to do a really bad job.
That's one of the things I don't get about unions. They protect really crappy workers. People, who would normally bounce out after a few months and go on to find something they were actually good at, can sit and fester in their position. They can do a bad job for a long, long time and still draw a paycheck just for occupying their seat at their desk.
There are also some bizarre job claiming rights things going on. If my current temp position's job requirements are rewritten and hours are added to make it full time then the position is opened up to anyone qualified person with seniority (pretty much everyone) in the district to decide they want it can come and take it and force me to work somewhere else. Oh, and the school has no say in it either. Does that make any sense? The school that will be dealing with the tech can't say no to the person coming in to occupy the lab and work around the campus.
Just because they can pass a fingerprint background check doesn't mean that there aren't some pretty freaking creepy geeks walking the earth. Some say over who works at your school would be, I don't know, polite at the least and smart bureaucracy at the best.
I don't pretend to understand even half of the nuance of union relations and definitely not very much of the educational system. But I have a little knowledge of bureaucracy and its special forms of tortured process. It involves lots and lots of meetings and meetings drain life force.
If there are any union folks reading this, enlighten me as to the value of retaining obviously sub-standard workers.
As an aside, someone should make a funny movie called Bureaucrazy modeled after Office Space, it would be instantly accessible by far too many enslaved 'crats.
Uncommon meaning that the educational system has a goal of graduating every child with a certain level of skills. The union has a goal of getting as much as possible for the workers it represents. And affording those workers a strange sense of job security even if they happen to do a really bad job.
That's one of the things I don't get about unions. They protect really crappy workers. People, who would normally bounce out after a few months and go on to find something they were actually good at, can sit and fester in their position. They can do a bad job for a long, long time and still draw a paycheck just for occupying their seat at their desk.
There are also some bizarre job claiming rights things going on. If my current temp position's job requirements are rewritten and hours are added to make it full time then the position is opened up to anyone qualified person with seniority (pretty much everyone) in the district to decide they want it can come and take it and force me to work somewhere else. Oh, and the school has no say in it either. Does that make any sense? The school that will be dealing with the tech can't say no to the person coming in to occupy the lab and work around the campus.
Just because they can pass a fingerprint background check doesn't mean that there aren't some pretty freaking creepy geeks walking the earth. Some say over who works at your school would be, I don't know, polite at the least and smart bureaucracy at the best.
I don't pretend to understand even half of the nuance of union relations and definitely not very much of the educational system. But I have a little knowledge of bureaucracy and its special forms of tortured process. It involves lots and lots of meetings and meetings drain life force.
If there are any union folks reading this, enlighten me as to the value of retaining obviously sub-standard workers.
As an aside, someone should make a funny movie called Bureaucrazy modeled after Office Space, it would be instantly accessible by far too many enslaved 'crats.
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