 |
|
name: will baker blogrollin' other sites: |
Things you don't want to hear from your employer...
First, I guess I should explain my long absence. I was in a training conference all last week, and didn�t have time to write an update. I am now a registered Risk Reduction Specialist�woo hoo! So, if you�re having trouble using rubbers, just gimme a call! One of the things I realized last week is that all trainers are the same, no matter what particular content they may specialize in. It�s like they all went to the same Trainer Training, where they learned pep and trust-building exercises and how to make colorful flip-chart pages. Nevertheless, last week was time well spent. Also, last week was apparently a great time to be away from the office; it�s been 100% pure ghetto drama around here. On Monday, we were told that our Executive Director is �no longer with the agency�. They wouldn�t say more, but since they had no one lined up to take her place, and now have a Board member managing the agency directly, it doesn�t take a genius to figure out that they fired her. I mean, the locksmith was changing all the locks as they were telling us all this! So on Tuesday, I go off to this training conference at the Texas Department of Health. Three of my co-workers were at the same conference, and they kept calling the office to see what was going on. So here�s the drama time-line: Tuesday morning, no one could get in to the office. Apparently the former E.D. somehow got in the office Monday night, and had all the locks changed again. Since they had already changed the locks twice in a 24 hour period, the locksmiths were reluctant to come out and change them again. So the acting E.D. sent everyone home with pay. But of course, those of us who were at the Health Department didn�t have any of this context information. The only message we got was �All employees are on paid leave until further notice.� That�s something you generally don�t want to hear from your employer. Wednesday morning we learn that the office is open again, but receive the cryptic instruction �Don�t talk to the media.� DEFINITELY something you don�t want to hear from your employer�very Enron. Thursday, we don�t really get any news. Friday morning, we hear that the paychecks �aren�t in the office��but are assured that we will be paid by the end of the day. These are still more things one doesn�t want to hear from one�s employer. On Friday evening, we do indeed get paid, and it appears that everything is fine for the moment. However, this morning we learn that the former E.D. has filed some sort of injunction against the Board of Directors, so that they can no longer enter the building�and she can enter the building. And may be here this morning. *sigh* I was at Xerox in 2001, when everything started to fall apart. That was a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company, the collapse of which affected thousands of lives. And yet they managed to treat us all with respect and dignity. So what I wonder is this: Why are employees of non-profits, who do work that (I think most people would agree) is infinitely more significant than, say, the sale of B2B contracts for digital copiers, not entitled to at least decent Human Resources standards and practices? Most of us are talented, passionate people who could be making a lot more money elsewhere. We�ve chosen this work, of course, so money is emphatically NOT the issue, but what is frustrating is being asked to accept low pay and unprofessional, melodramatic, overly-political working situations. Aren�t we here to do important work? BEAT AIDS has about 27 employees�.so why does it have four layers on its organizational chart? What 1950�s fantasy world are they living in? SBC has a flatter org chart, and they�re a gigantic corporation! But that�s the thing: the non-profit world seems to attract and promote people who enjoy authority and control but don�t want to be accountable for bottom-line results. It�s a world infested with personal agendas and self-aggrandizement. Of course, beyond all that, at the constitutive horizon of our organizational experience, there�s the client, a metaphoric condensation of the community in its various crises and needs. And one hopes that we can manage to navigate through the rocky shoals of power-politics with enough to skill to keep our organizations afloat and on course toward that horizon of need...driven by the hunger to serve that brought us to this scene to begin with.
last 5 entries: |
this site is optimized for FireFox 1.0, because Explorer is for mouth-breathers.
