I’m not too much for pro sports, but I do admire the guts, skill, and determination of many individual athletes. Consider Marino Rivera. Game after game, the team calls on him to reliably close out the game. He’s never called into easy situations. The score is tight, there may be several runners on base and less than 2 out. Yet game after game, he pulls his team through.
I’ve been thrown into the same role in a very small way. Because of leadership shortcomings, many systems are failing even though there are plenty of people to do the work. Instead of describing what needs to be done and then letting a system develop, leadership wants to micromanage every detail. Instead of focusing on the problems, the workers are trying to please, or at least not offend the leader. Not a problem, I guess, but then when the situation blows up, leadership scatters and blames the workers. Who were trying their best to please the very leader who is letting them down.
¡adelante!
I’m doing it my way. A certain leader will grouse but once the situation settles down, she will find someone else to pick on. A bright spot is that we have a very strong, up and coming leader with strong ties to community we serve. Just have to build her confidence and get her superiors to see how great she is.
Any thoughts, team?
I finally checked into liability insurance for teachers and found an organization that seems to fit the bill, called the Association for American Educators. Their web site is here: http://www.aaeteachers.org/
I’m still learning about them, but I’ve already signed up for a membership. They are not a labor union in the mold of NEA or AFT, although that has not stopped both unions from trash talking the AAE. They do no bargaining or representation for minor things like bad lesson plans. Instead, they provide liability insurance and some other benefits. For example, if a child falls and cuts themselves while under my supervision, it’s completely possible that I might be sued. Formerly I was relying on my union local and my district to defend me and possibly pay damages that might be awarded. Not any more!
Reality: The board’s attorney rightfully represents the interests of the board and public that elected them. The union’s attorney represents…the union. There’s a bit of problem here. Even though I pay dues each month, it’s the union, and specifically the union leadership, that are being represented by the union’s lawyer, not me as an individual. So if the local union leadership decides, for whatever reason, that the union should not represent me legally, I’m on the hook to personally pay any damages awarded.
Ergo (love that word), I want insurance that covers ME. I’m going to continue researching this, but for the moment, it gives me some confidence. If I were called in the central office and the union reps and attorney are waiting, I can say to them, “Thanks, but I have my own attorney to represent me. I don’t need you to be here, have a good day.” :-)
Quick note about comments: the form asks for things like name, email, etc. Fake info works for me! I’m focused on your comment, not who you are.
I’ve been trying to get a straight answer from our elected leader as to whether the current leadership will in fact retire. A claim was made before the last election this would be our leader’s final term in office.
In fact, there’s a pattern here. That same claim has been made every two years since I’ve been employed here. So we’ll see. Make your bets please! :)
I’ve been pondering the quote from the 1987 movie, the original Wall Street. The character of Gordon Gekko said, “If you want a friend, get a dog”. I was reminded of this last year. I happened to be standing in a place outside my regular work area when I overheard two customers gossiping about me. Those people are my customers, not my friends. As long as they pay their bills, who cares?
Here’s something that actually bothered me: Today a manager made an unkind comment about other paying customers, in front of a meeting. We are in such uncharted waters, we need every ally we can get. Especially those who pay their bills. Some of the people at this meeting are friends and relatives of our customers. Real friends, not the people in the Wall Street quote – they’ve probably already heard what was said.
As in most businesses, we have a mix of younger and older staff. As I said in an earlier post, we have an unfortunate division. Some older staff think that the younger staff should have to take a long trip to get a decent salary, as they did. Here’s the problem: Those same young people are going to be paying for our retirements, and supposedly lobbying for us when the powers that be want to cut pensions and benefits for us. The feeling of the younger staff? ”Why should I care about people who treated me like something you’d scrape off the bottom of your shoe? Let them suffer!!” We taught the younger staff well, eh?
What goes around, comes around. Let’s find a way to be a team. We don’t have to be friends, but we do need to have each other’s backs.
I’m posting from DD this morning, stop by for a cup!
My sister sent me this link at about 4 AM. (Damn you get up early sis!!) #Christie fired eight county superintendents yesterday. http://bit.ly/hucLJY Here is a link to a story from Dec. 16, in which (former) Middlesex County superintendent Patrick Piegari approved a local superintendent contract that didn’t follow the new rules, which would seem to be against Christie’s wishes. It’s possible this is what led to Piegari being fired. If you are in one of the other counties, please let us know about your county superintendent. http://bit.ly/i3DKPq I will be doing more research later today, but to me, this is the next salvo in Christie’s war on education in NJ. Now that he has established this level of control over the local superintendents, my gut is that he will get the local supers to lower the salaries and benefits of the next level – principals, VPs, supervisors, etc. Once that’s happened, the county supers will then have direct authority over teacher contracts. Many colleagues expressed indifference when the new guidelines for super. salaries came out. As we can now see, that was just one step.
Keep your comments and emails coming. Please share this blog address with your colleagues, but not on our employer’s email or computers, please!!. I checked and was happy to see that it is blocked at our job sites. I would be very upset if any of my hard working colleagues got in trouble for accessing this at work.
Have a great day.
Let’s get started! These are the concerns that people have expressed to me for about 10 years. Comment here or email me at adelanteNJ@gmail.com. As I said in my first post, please be civil, don’t be like this blogger, who calls people names if they don’t follow his rules. You are welcome to disagree, with me or each other, as long as you’re polite.
1. Salary guide that encourages younger workers to move on. A side effect is this type of statement, expressed by those employed long enough to get by the very small increases at the beginning: Why should I care about them? I suffered through the tiny increments, let them suffer too. My thought: We need a guide that brings us together as a team, not causing this kind of division. We need to have each other’s backs. There are ways to solve this, but it will require some adjustment to our current way of thinking about how a salary guide should be structured. See p. 2 of this PDF file for a short primer entitled, “Best practices for salary guide construction”.
2. Disparity in work load between various job titles sharing the same salary guide. I agree that one job title shoulders the most important work and the bulk of the responsibility. Start of the solution: Members of that group need to run for leadership in the next election. Our current leader has said numerous times that this is her last term, so it’s a great time to start a new way of thinking.
3. Elected leadership not visiting job sites, except to deal with problems involving one or a small group of workers. A now-retired leader, when asked why the leadership does not visit job sites on a regular basis, said that it turns into a gripe session. My thought: Okay, so it’s a gripe session. At least it would set the tone that leadership is listening to peoples’ concerns. From there we can move forward.
Welcome. I will be writing on topics of my own interest, as well as researching questions posed here. As I have a bit of time today, I’m setting my blog up, but I won’t begin posting until after January 1, 2011.
To keep it civil and safer for you:
Have a healthy and safe 2011.
