The Politics of Fear

I was never going to mention politics in this blog.  It isn't a political blog. But the Fear is very real and it is mine.

It is my fear for Me.  The job that I have been doing for the last two decades is so specialized that were I to lose it, I would be virtually unemployable, especially at my age...

My fear is for my Son.  In college, working hard, and for what?  Will he be working three part-time jobs none of them with benefits in order to make ends meet.  What if there are no jobs out there?  Unemployment is high.  And getting higher.  How will he afford to marry, to have a family?  I can't see any clear answers to those questions.

My fear is for my Husband.  We had plans to retire.  He has been saving for retirement since he was in his 20's.  Yes, his 20's.  He was working a job with a retirement plan that he could opt into and he did.  And put away a little extra every month.  We watched it growing and he patted himself on the back for showing great foresight.  We weren't going to get caught like so many who had not planned well for their future...
But those investments cannot be touched and are tied to the stock markets.  We have watched them nose dive several times over the years - always believing what we were told:  It is a long term investment.   Give it time, and it will recover.  But that was before the current economic meltdown, the financial crisis in Europe, computerized trading, and a global economy...
That was before continuing unemployment that shows no signs of abating.  And a retirement that is receeding farther and farther into our future. 

We are told on the one hand that we can't increase revenue by raising taxes, because that would hurt the "job creators" - well, I have a corollary then:  Let them either create jobs - good jobs.  Jobs that can support a family.  Jobs that provide benefits.  Jobs that will allow workers to begin purchasing durable goods again, so we can increase prodction so that we can hire more people so that they can earn money and spend money.....and buy houses and cars.  Or let them pay taxes.

One or the other.

If they choose to hold back to see how things go...letting people twist in the wind, unable to find work as their unemployment benefits run out...
Well then, LET THEM PAY TAXES INSTEAD.

If they choose to "invest in America" by creating meaningful, decently paying jobs, well then - they have made their contribution.

Only seems fair.

Thanks for listening.  I feel better now.  Not less fearful, mind you, but better.

Students!

Students! Or, more accurately, Student Workers! The are a blessing in that we couldn't get our jobs done without them. They are a curse in that the are Students FIRST!

You can't manage them the way that you would an ordinary worker. When a student worker is scheduled for 2 hours per day on Tuesday and Thursday, and doesn't show up you have to assume that there is a study session or a test the next day. You can't just say, "You weren't here. You're fired." That tactic would leave you struggling on alone with no help at all.

When the absent worker appears on FRIDAY morning - you have to look at it as if they are keeping their part of the bargain. They promised that they would give you 4 hours and you are getting 4 hours - it just isn't on YOUR time table.

This morning I was expecting to train two new workers. I had set aside time in my day to spend in the lab with them. I would be teaching them something new. Something that they will need to be able to do alone in a few weeks.

I get to the lab this morning. Tuesday/Thursday's missing worker is on task - doing the job that had been set aside for the expected Friday workers. She already knows how to do this task and she is doing it correctly and efficiently. The other two do not know how to do this task. By the time they get here it will be done. When they need to do this in the future, I may not have the time in the lab that I can dedicate to them exclusively.

As soon as I finish writing this I will spend the next little time at my desk trying to figure out something for the two new workers to do that will teach them something that will make them more productive, independant workers in the future...

Grrrrrrr.

lesson RElearned

We're going to get philosophical here for a minute - kind of.

I know better (courtesy of the Wall Street Buffoons) than to just type and hit send. I KNOW BETTER. I was speaking of this to The Bearded One just the other day. I should know this better than most because as well as being the offender on occasion, in the long distant past I was, on one memmorable occasion, the offendee. I received, courtesy of someone who "thought I should know what was being said", an email never intended for my eyes.

Yes, it hurt. Yes, it made me very angry. Yes, it permanently altered my relationships with both the original emailer and the forwarder...

So I should know better. But I am human and in a moment of ill considered lunacy, I sent a frustrated (and if you aren't the object of it, funny) email to a colleague - not realizing that it would be forwarded, first to another person, and then to the email's subject...

Now I am in the position of knowing that I owe someone a BIG apology for being heedless, tactless, and less than adult. I also know that I really can't bring up the subject. I am going to have to wait and stew about it until the injured party brings it up. Probably a really just punishment for me as I do guilt so well.

So I hereby resolve - NO EMAIL unless it is purely informational. If it is other than that it will be via phone (after assuring myself that the call is not being recorded) or in person (after making sure that the other person isn't wearing a wire).

An Homage to Educators

I am at the end of the first week of the worst two weeks of my year.  The week before and the first week of SCHOOL.

If you want to believe the politicians it is when we sorry assed, lazy boned, parasites drag ourselves out of bed and say, "Ah, now for another year of sponging off the public and delivering nothing of value!"

Here is what really happens (part of it heavily fictionalized - you decide which parts are God's Honest Truth):

You are an elementary teacher, back to your freshly painted classroom.  That classroom was supposed to be painted during your summer break, but due to the vagarities of the purchasing system, the contract wasn't signed until July 15th and your room is in the last wing of the school to be painted.  How every single classroom is in the "last wing to be painted" is completely beyond me, but there it is.  The custodians cannot wax and polish the floors until the painters are finished and they will be doing this, working overtime, over the weekend.  Your locking, rolling, cabinet with all of your school supplies is still in storage and will be moved to your classroom late Sunday night.  Your pupils will be arriving, fresh faced and ready to learn at 8:30 AM on Monday.  Congratulations, you have 1.5 hours to put your classroom together!

You are the high school principal who finds that, due to a software "upgrade" over the summer, the computer did not catch the fact that AP Biology and the (required) Senior Civics course are BOTH scheduled for 6th period.  The entire English department has been scheduled for TWO planning periods, and the Sophomore Class has not been assigned any English at all (hence the TWO planning periods).  And the classrooms in the 600 wing are leaking.

You are the community college instructor, receiving frantic emails from students:  The school bookstore does not yet have their text books;  they are still on order from the publisher (who to be perfectly fair, did not receive the book orders until the end of June and has only printed 5000 Biology texts when 7000 are actually needed - STOP THE PRESSES and RE-PRIORITIZE!).  There are also the students who will be absent on the first day of class:  Their grandmother's funeral is on the other side of the country;  their return from deployment has been delayed; they are in the hospital and awaiting test results; Please, Please, Please DO NOT RELEASE THEIR SEAT IN THE CLASS!  If they are not in class on day one they will be dropped and you will then fill their seat from the waitlist. Day one dawns, registered students are dropped, ecstatic waitlisters are added and only then do you find that your email has now been changed from first letter first name/last name to first letter first name/last name/last two digits of the first year of hire by the college so none of the student requests got through.

You are a long suffering Division Dean at the local community college; while dealing with budget cuts, and parking shortages (CONSTRUCTION! - see elementary school example above) discovers, courtesy of the harried Department Chairs that several part time faculty members are not available to teach on the first day of classes.  Their fingerprints and/or transcripts have not yet arrived at Human Resources, plus several other part time faculty members have JUST recieved contract offers from other schools and will not be available.  Cancelling classes is not an option.

You are the academic administrative assistant who has been calling prospective instructors to see if they are still available - because of the aforementioned holes in the classroom instructor ranks. Most of them have moved out of state, or are already contracted elsewhere. Cancelling classes is not an option.


You are Instructional Support Personnel, who are supposed to have "everything ready to go", but the instructor informs you that as textbooks are not available, you will have to get publisher's permission and photocopy the first 5 chapters of the text for 300 of the 600 enrolled students, or substitute the week 6 lab exercise for the week 1 exercise. The fact that the week 6 supplies have not been ordered (they have a FRESH DATE!), and cannot be received in time, is but a small inconvenience - you can walk on water! You will be ready to go on day one! And you are.


You are a student, also in a tizzy.  You need THAT ONE CLASS to transfer and it was waitlisted on the second day of registration.  You have already been accepted by the University contingent of the completion of THAT ONE CLASS.  You are lining up at the door of the instructor's office, from where you will be sent to the dean's office, from where you will stride purposefully to the VP Instruction's office - seeking both an explanation of HOW THIS HAPPENED as well as an override admission to the already full class.  If you do not get the class, not only is your University admission in jeopardy, but you will be dropped from your parent's medical insurance because you will not be a full time student!

And in the final analysis, it is you, the student (and your parents) that we do this for.  We exist to give you the knowledge and skills that you will need to step out of our semi-isolated and semi-insulated world into the "real world" where you, if we have done our jobs correctly, will continue to learn and grow and ultimately be successful - and send your own children back into the system in their turn.

Happy Fall Semester to all of you!

Why do I keep hearing Bells? Bells, Bells, BELLS!

I have been carrying my cell phone in my pocket today. I am expecting a call that I plan to answer, as opposed to the calls that I screen or just plain ignore...

I have answered my phone at least 5 times today only to find no one on the "line". Now even though the ringing is faint, I do have the world's quietest cell phone even with the volume on HI and so I answer.  This is very time consuming (OK, not so much) as well as embarassing.

It turns out that they are jackhammering concrete three buildings over and it is vibrating through my building's metal framing...

Harumph.

Always the Mommy

Do people ever just flipping LOOK?  One trip to "where something ought to be/used to be" - not finding it right there and the result is:  "Where is it?  I know we have it!"
As if I came in the night like the fairies and moved things around - just to play with their minds...
Box of light bulbs found.  In plain sight.  In the middle of a table.  In a lighted room.  With LABELS on the box identifying what it was.
Just plain laziness.