Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Back to work Part 1,2 and 3

Well, going back to work opened an entire can of unexpected worms. Before I left, I filed paperwork just like I was supposed to, had it signed just like I was supposed to and turned it in just like I was supposed to.

Once it is typed and reviewed, it gets a log number and I sign it. Being as how this was a big deal person threat, it should have been submitted to the Threat Assessment Team.

None of that happened.
And here is why.

My boss was on vacation, so I had a substitute boss who just signed the report and didn't read it.
I gave it to some officer (just a guy in green...no idea who he is or what color he was.) I bet you a nickel it is either in a pile of paper (it could have been his Friday or his last day before vacation or he was just covering the position.....or he retired....any number of things could have happened to those reports.) And when it gets found, I bet a nickel it will end up in a batch of junk in the shredder ASAP.

And no, I didn't make a copy because I never make copies before the reports are logged and typed. And since my supervisor didn't read it, there was no red light there. I'm not the one who decides if it is a threatening situation...someone else does that. So that didn't happen.....and so on down the line.

And July 1 is the day where all of the job changes go into effect..sort of like the first day of school.
So the guys who were doing job 27 in June might be doing job 18 on July 1.

So after Head Honcho One grills me thirteen times (he was using the little tiny post-its, so there wasn't much of a story...and no, I don't know for positive which guys were planning on slaughtering me....I had just gotten a boatload of new students and these were some of them. After three weeks, the best I could do was guess it was A,B and C because they didn't turn in any work that day.)

H1 is very peeved with me and does his best to make this my fault. (It's not. Stuff happens.) Head Honcho Two tells me that if a guy is going to stick me, he certainly isn't going to TELL me, so in his opinion, not only did I handle it right, it was no big deal in the first place. H2O outranks H1.

So H1 definitely does not want me on the yard because I might be a nut case. (Actually, I think maybe I am a nut case and I caught it at work.) H2O can't see what harm I could possibly do if I just work my morning class and then "find something to do in the afternoon."

So in the meantime.....I'm answering the phone. Checking bubble sheets. Looking for boxes because we are moving over to the dark side...about 2 miles ON FOOT from where the car park is. (And you are right....How serious is an assignment called "Go look for boxes"? You can imagine what that was going to look like.)

I made six copies of the new and improved medical somethings for the six libraries. No real idea what the heck I was doing, but I managed to get part of each section of the thousand plus page project upside down, so I had to go through each set and fix that. Then my boss decided that the dividers needed to be in different colors, so I had to search out where the heck to put them. THEN I had to hole punch them....we have an automatic hole puncher, which in theory sounds good unless one has the attention span of a sieve. In which case one would have to hole punch BOTH sides, opening up the question......well, face it. I am no good at this. An inmate could have had it done in 15 minutes. It took me about three hours.

SO now I have an hour to burn (this is day three of finding something to do, since at my workplace, every day is a new day. We show up like we were dropped off the mother ship five minutes ago.)

I call down to the back of beyond to see if someone will open the gate for me (yep. Just like a cow when she hears the tractor) and hotfoot it (it was 109 because I'm in a concrete alley with big concrete buildings on both sides.)

So I am busily cleaning up whack bubble sheets for a report that is due in Sac on Friday. I have a special eraser and pencil and everything.

Happy, happy, happy. And just for GP, all teachers read directions differently. They read parts of any given memo. And what do you get? GIGO.

So there I am, merrily erasing and in flies Red. She has be redirected to my class and I'm in her non-contact position. She hasn't actually STARTED her job yet; she been getting things organized. And I'm not sure that this is real info, since I'm not getting a phone call from anyone in charge. But if I were running this asylum, that's what I'd do with me. I'm a competent worker...I just have a problem with migraines. Can't fire me. So in this huge machine in which I work, surely there is something I am capable to do. (Besides making copies.)

Now, non-contact positions are great. Lots of paperwork but no real problems. Behind in your work? Show up early and catch it up. Miss a few days? Make sure all your mail outs are done.
Contact positions are more demanding...because you are tied into a really rigid time schedule; you have to keep track of 60 guys (when did they go to the doctor? When did they get back? When did they physically set foot in class?), just in case one of them murders someone and claims it ain't him a'cause he was in school. Well, not at 10:22. At 10:22, you were not in class and you weren't in the clinic. It might be you. It might not.

And you have a ton of reports. plus seat work and testing.....it is a real pain and you have to be really organized. I am. Red's not.

But Red goes to work every day. And that is a good thing because I don't.

But after the BAN in San Francisco on Monday, my attendance might possibly improve. Once upon a time, I had 220 days on the books. I have zero now.....I've had zero since Mr. Celery decided to stalk me.

So the job change is good....I'll get some serious walking in every day just GETTING to the office. I love doing mail outs. I can spend the entire day with my head stuck in the computer and listen to music and make spreadsheets. I have 220 students I never have to see.

2 comments:

edbteach said...

I also spit water out at my computer screen at "attention span of a sieve" and "dropped off the mother ship five minutes ago" Give a girl some warning would ya?? LOLOLOL

I hope you settle into your new job and it turns into one that works for you!

Elizabeth

Paulie said...

And life goes on . . .