By Darla Upton, Columnist
I got another anonymous letter.
I’m trying to decide if I should do anything with it.
Sure, after reading it I’m just as curious as the writer about how the powers that be make the decisions they make.
Employment decisions seem to be at the forefront lately. As a city we seem to make poor decisions as it relates to employment. We seem almost slutty in our pursuits. We also seem to take huge gambles hoping for big pay offs. Slutty risk takers is fine in a college girlfriend but not so much in a city.
Like, for example, my recent anonymous letter asked why an employee got a 14,000 –yes thousands– dollar raise when said person has only been here three years. Now, upon further looking the raise was given two years ago. So, in three years there has only been one raise. The employee has been here four years, or there about. But still – $14,000 for being here four years? That’s $4,000 for every year after hire. Not bad, right?
Here’s the kick in the head. Contractually the position could have had raises. Don’t you love those kinda contracts? The ones that say you are entitled, yes, entitled to a certain pay raise each year after hire. So, with a contractual pay rise let’s just say first year anniversary the position should have gotten $3200. The second year the position shoulda gotten somewhere in the area of $3300 more. The fourth year would have generated a raise in the neighborhood of $3400. So as the position starts rolling to another year then that $14,000 is right on the entitled raises fast track.
Entitled to a $14,000 raise. Hmm. Most people hate the word “entitled.” I see memes all over the Internet preaching about how awful entitled kids are and how no one is entitled to anything.
So I’m thinking entitled sucks unless it is in an employment contract.
I gotta get me one of those.
Now, hold on to your hats because it gets better. Apparently, there’s more…..
According to a board member this employee is also given a $10,000 (yes 10 THOUSAND) a year stipend to drive to work….
Wait! What? Yes, the position not only got $14,000 added to a paycheck in four years but also receives another perk. There seems to be $10,000 A YEAR for uh, gas money and car maintenance to take said person to and from the job. The job said person applied for. Applied for knowing it was several miles from home to job.
Wait now, I know what you are thinking.
“I don’t get a separate check to drive to work when it was my happy arse that applied for a job in a town I don’t live in.”
Any of y’all get paid to travel into Marshall or Longview to work? Well if you are, good for you. If you don’t, then you are like me and think that is part of the heartache of a job. Things like waking up for said job, dressing appropriately for said job, using money from said job to pay for my car and for the gas to get me to and from said job.
I mean, ducking hell, that kinda raise and than kinda perk means you must not only be a great person to work with but also doing a ducking outstanding job and reports would prove it.
I mean, to quote Office Space, “Brian, over there, has lots of flair.” I’m thinking this employee has lots of flair and “upper management written all over” him.
Now, if a person is such a catch that I’m lucky to have them as an employee then I might pay your way to come see me. One has to look at the base pay of a job. Often base pay may not be much but the perks and bonuses and insurance make it worth it. I mean, in good jobs it’s a negotiation–a courtship, even.
I mean, it’s like a good fling. You negotiate with a man right he will pay your gas and maybe eventually your car payment. If you do things right, he might buy you a building and paint your ducking door yellow. I’m just saying employment isn’t much different. She may not be much to look at but she sure can cook. Perks. Bonuses.
So, back to this letter. Now, that I know this person got 14,000 more dollars and gets $10,000 a year just for showing up I have to wonder how the negotiations, if any, went. I have to hope we weren’t just out of the gate promising raises, gas money and long walks on the beach. I have to hope maybe promises were made to us. Maybe we are contractually entitled to some things. Maybe. Hopefully. Maybe they promised to do certain things and not talk during the Super Bowl. But I wasn’t at the negotiations so one may never know exactly how all that went back and forth.
As it relates to these anonymous letters I had to consider if this position required the person go in and clean house? Often businesses need the fat trimmed. People get stagnant in their roles. They end up taking raises year after year and not really bring anything to the table anymore. We all know people who are making maxed out salaries simply because they’ve been at a job for years but yet aren’t really doing stellar jobs. They do the minimum for that maximum salary. So, my first thought is did this person clean house? Often cutting the fat brings disgruntled employees that write anonymous letters. I took that into consideration. And it would appear as though a lot of employees have left employment freeing up monies. Was that part of the negotiations? Cut the fat get more perks? I don’t know. But let’s just say that was not the case. I think a potential employer would be retarded to make that sort of agreement. If you want a team to come in and cut your fat you hire them to do just that. There are companies that specialize in helping companies save money. You don’t give that sort of power to one person and that person directly benefit from it. Now, am I saying powers that be in our town aren’t retarded enough to make such a deal…no, I’m not saying that. They are EXACTLY that retarded. However, for this hypothetical let’s make our powers that be a little smarter than the average bear, ok?
Alright, so fat cutting took place. Looks like about $19,000 has been saved in replacing employees or just eliminating jobs and/or employees. It is a big rumor mill but yes, people are gone and yes, there are new employees. Are they cheaper and less experienced employees? Likely, I didn’t look into each person’s background. You go do it. I’m tired of all the he said she said surrounding it.
Anyway, it is nothing new for loyalty to be disregarded by an employer in order to bring in cheaper. Even when it has been proven the monetary gains made when hiring the less experienced is short lived because they often utilize you as a stepping stone to a new, better employer and you are left hiring and training a worker all over again when you could have just kept your old, loyal employee and capped salaries based on new ideas and continuing education.
Ok, so we got some newbies, cut some fat, saved some money.
So, far he has earned a raise, right? I don’t know if we are at $14,000 raise but just for argument sake let’s say the base pay when hired was crap so saving $19,000 covers that $14,000 raise. Again, I don’t think one paid for the other but just to keep the figures tight you save a company money they give you recognition. That’s a good courtship. Yearly anniversaries are all candlelight, roses and nice earrings. There’s still love between employee and employer but the underlings are getting antsy. Well, this isn’t an orgy. It’s a courtship of two so the underlings can suck it.
But the job wasn’t just to cut fat –and as I stated before I don’t think that should ever be a person’s job who is new unless it’s a financial firm contracted to do so. My thought is if you lack the sack and the nerve to reach into it and pull out walking papers then you shouldn’t be in charge of anything.
Now, the meat of the position is dealing with employees and scoring. Got the employee thing handled. Just from the letters I’ve gotten and what I can get people to say when asked, employees are either staying or leaving. Some say it was time others say he’s a beast. You can’t please everyone. A company has a lot of personalities in it. Not everyone is gonna mesh. Let’s take a look at the other duty of the position. Performance.
In a lot of companies there’s a scoring. A way to judge performance. The idea being how you are as a leader shines in your employees. If your employees fail, you fail. On oil rigs ya got underlings, supervisors, janitors and OSHA. There’s always a report card that lets ya know how you are doing your job when you are at the top of the chain.
Day to day work–daily worksheets, if you will– count maybe 20% of your grade. The big test though, that’s the one everyone is looking at to see if you are making the cut.
Now, I have no idea how our Prom King is performing when it comes to his daily duties. As for popularity, I’m not sure he’ll keep the crown but then I only have a letter to defer to. All I know is those report card scores. They are pretty black and white. Scores are down, folks.
And like when your kid brings home that D they can probably explain it away. Maybe they bombed a project. Maybe the teacher hates them. Maybe they were sick and missed a lot of work. There are plenty of reasons why scores aren’t just numbers, sometimes there is a story behind them. A story of a struggle. A story of finding the problem and fixing it.
But sometimes the story is you didn’t study so you got it wrong.
Sometimes the story has a twist at the end when you find out the company they worked at before, well, their report card grades went up after the person left.
But, here’s the things, people.
I don’t care.
I really don’t.
In case you haven’t figured it out this is all school related.
My kid doesn’t go to any local schools. Yeah, the property taxes in town are stifling and I have yet to figure out exactly where the money goes. The majority of people in town are seniors which mean their taxes are frozen and year after year younger property owners are expected to pick up the slack with higher and higher taxes. Yes, there’s a school board but for every jerk you vote off two other jerks remain. Voted to remain. By the time you get any real change, your kid’s public school education is over and he’s working on his masters three states away. Changes, if they come, take forever and I don’t have that kinda time.
So, I will give you the same advice I gave the last time I got an anonymous letter. If you hate your job–and don’t say, “I love my job. I hate the administration”–because the administration is part of your job and it’s never going to change–so, if you hate your job, leave it. If you feel like your kid isn’t prepared for college, figure that crap out for your kid. Get them out of the district that isn’t performing well and get them in one that is. Again, by the time you change it your kid will have missed years of higher learning. Is that what you want? To spin your wheels trying to get change or help your kid?
I don’t homeschool but plenty of people do. Check that out. I took my kid to a neighboring district early on. Check that out. We have Atticus in k12.com which is an online Texas public school. He logs online to a classroom, with a teacher and everything. He has work and tests and they ship all the materials needed. I didn’t buy a single school supply this year. They even sent an art kit for his art class. He never has homework. He gets an hour lunch. He spends about an hour playing with our dogs during his break. We still stop working by 3:30 p.m. Is it for everyone? No. Is it an option? Yes. Don’t waste years trying to get what you want from your district. Make changes for your kid.
If you are an educator. Get out. Look at your budget and cut the fat at your home so you can take a lower paying job and not have to deal with some jerk telling you how to do your job. There are all sorts of little private schools. Hugh and I have even discussed that if a couple of innovative educators rented a space and agreed to “sit” with K12 kids while parents were at work they could have an easy job doing what they love.
The curriculum is already worked out. The kids all have on headphones working their grade. You walk around to help if they get stuck or to check their work. You would essentially play the role the parent would if they weren’t at work. Provide tutoring at the end of the day and you have a nice little job without an administrator. Ta Da!
Stop being unhappy forcing change around you because you believe you are right and they are wrong and instead pack yo stuff up and get gone. Leave them to their wrong way of doing things and you go do it better all day long somewhere else.
But do it quietly. Don’t tell me about it.
Stop sending me anonymous letters.
The only anonymous letters I want to get are ones asking for my advice. I think I’ll start doing an advice column.