Monday, July 2, 2007

A little rant

Just to get this off my chest:

The people in charge at the school district that I graduated from are complete dolts. Seriously. There are no words.

My dad retired this year. End of July, actually. He's been the bus mechanic/transportation director/route director/mostly-full-time bus driver for quite a few years (20 maybe?). He's had a 100% pass rate at the annual inspection for something like 15 years in a row, a record matched by only three other people in the whole state.

The school district advertised for a replacement. The ad mentioned that the job required 5 years of diesel mechanic experience - which is logical, since all but one of the buses is diesel. They had two applicants. Applicant A had the required experience in diesel engines, plus had done route director work at another school and had bus driving experience. Applicant B has no diesel experience, no bus driving experience, but has run a body shop.

Who do you think the school hired? That's right, Applicant B, the one who didn't fulfill the experience requirement, but whose wife works at the school. And yet he's being hired for a job he isn't really qualified for, at the salary that my dad made three years ago (i.e. after 18 or so years on the job). After they add what he'll earn driving a bus when needed, he'll be making what Dad's making now. He was also hired as a 12-month employee (Dad's been an 11-month contract since he started), so he gets an extra 2 weeks of vacation, plus various sick days.

Dad can work 550 hours (1/4 full-time basically) this year, if he wants. The superintendent wants Dad to save some of those hours so he can help the new guy through inspection next spring. If it were me, the guy sounds okay, but I'd use the 550 hours to get the guy up to speed, and then it would be time for him to sink or swim. When Dad started, he didn't have anyone there holding his hand for the first year.

IMHO, the school shouldn't count on Dad being around to bail them out when the new fellow's lack of experience comes back to bite them in the butt. And it will bite them, because he's got 15 or so buses to look after, and since it's a rural district, they rack up the miles. And they've hired a nice, but totally unqualified person to take care of things, and he's the only one there. It's not like he has an assistant or supervisor around to lend a hand. Of course, if it takes a while to get the new guy up to snuff, Dad may not have any time to use when inspection rolls around next March.

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