Run for your lives! The School Bored is meeting!

Tomorrow night there is yet another Bored meeting. On the agenda is:

• the budget override (postponed from the last meeting)
• the reorganization chart (postponed from the last meeting)
• the admin appointments (postponed from the last meeting) including Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, Director of Professional Development, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and Director of Career and Technical Education.
• the 07-08 budget

What's the difference between Curriculum and Instruction, Teaching and Learning and Professional Development? Why do we need both an Assistant Superintendent of Student Services and a Chief Executive Officer of Educational Support Services? Why are they in completely different offices? Does anyone else find Office (or Department) of Teaching and Learning a lame name? If more than 3 people show up for call to the audience to discuss the $700,000 "accounting error", will all those other sticky topics be postponed again? The $700,000 is not on the agenda, although adding an auditing committee is.
In meantime, Destiny stalks the halls of the SNEAC building.

Library coordinator Blues

People are asking why there have been few, if any, applicants for the Library Coordinator position. Let's see...

• The position has NEVER been advertised correctly. In the current version the listed salary doesn't match the listed grade. The whole saga of wrong listings would seem to indicate a certain amount of administrative ambivalence about the desirability of having a coordinator.
• Insiders know what happened to the last Library Coordinator.
• Outsiders are all rejected by HR (alias Shredder Central) because they aren't insiders and don't have a current local fingerprint card. If the fingerprint card is current then it's the wrong color.
• Thanks to a $700,000 "oversight" the entire United States now knows how well managed the Duchy is. That little fiasco has made its way from the AP wire to Education Week, Insurance Journal, etc. Would you want to work for a Duchy that's likely to ask for your salary back because someone else made a mistake?
• The Black Queen frequently says "No one works harder in support of librarians than I do." This is absolutely true. Notice that she does not say she has supported libraries, just that no one else works harder at it. The Black Queen has indeed worked very hard to see that no one is allowed to support libraries.

In other news, the Duchy Bored held a "Special" meeting last night to discuss the new organization chart, which of course is not on display anywhere. However, following the audio recording of the meeting while looking at the current org chart, the changes are....broad? no... sweeping? no.... negligible? That's it!
They have moved Ethnic studies from the left side of the page to the middle of the page and surrounded it with a dotted line moat. In a major attempt to trim the administrative fat, they have cut high level administrative positions from 47 to.... 46 for a total savings of $0.00.

Bored: What's the difference between an Executive Director and a Director?
Duke: An Executive Director supervises Directors.
Bored: Can you give me an example? For instance, what directors does the Executive Director of Financial Services supervise?
Duke: The Executive Director of Financial Services supervises the Director of Purchasing.
Bored: That's it? The Executive Director supervises ONE Director?
Duke: That's right.
(Hmmm, I begin to see the problem.)

One of the Bored members wanted to see a list of positions with salaries to see why 46 administrators cost exactly the same as 47 administrators. (bulk buying?)

The Duke wanted to point out that students and parents were in Pink and Administrators were in Green.

The White Queen wanted everyone to know what a wonderful job everyone had done in all of the meetings that were necessary to arrive at the new org chart. The Bored wanted to know if the people in the meetings had seen and approved of the new org chart. The White Queen said "No, they were only there to provide Input." (I think I've been misunderstanding that word. I thought it meant information, opinions, things like that. I'm beginning to wonder if it's not like the Matrix. They fill the Bored room with innocents thinking they are part of a focus group, bore them unconsious, hook them up to machines and use their "Input" to power the massive energy drain caused by the incessant powerpoints.)

Civil war in the Duchy?

Duke Phfffr is currently taking heavy fire from a School Bored militant, however, other representatives of the Bored claim to support the Duke. Today's skirmishes together with rising unrest among the Duchy villagers is causing Duchy watchers to ask "Is it civil war?" The administration continues to claim that everthing is under control and "on-track". There are still rumors of new org charts. Sources of unknown reliability claim to have actually SEEN the rumored org charts with their own eyes. These reports are unverified. What has been verifed is that the Bored agenda included "Administrative Appointments" but that didn't happen. Why? The Coordinator Job is once again on display. It just keeps popping up. We're pretty sure that there have been qualified applicants. Maybe the Job is just Bait. Is the Castle attempting to eliminate librarians by luring them in with a "job application" and then feeding them to a monster in the basement? Is there a monster in the basement? (We know there is a basement.)

Dotland's Destiny

Have you seen the Visa check card commercial with all the people whirling in circles of activity in a busy deli? That's been Dotland for the last two weeks. All of the Dots (except Blue who is attending a family funeral) and some of the T's (from TS) have been converting libraries from Follay to Destiny. They all seem to be whirling independently, maybe even randomly, loosely choreographed with checklists and post-its and e-mails. Even though it looks like random, frenetic movement, it all meshes smoothly. An e-mail to a T shoots out of a circle of activity, some time later, a Dot grabs the return e-mail and sends it where it needs to go. Like a factory, at the end, there's a stack of converted Follay databases, just waiting for the Destiny delivery man to roll into town and pick them up. The Dot's productivity has stunned the Lime Green Knight. The White Tornado said "You are kicking butt and taking names." "No", said Sage, "We are kicking butt and taking SCHOOLS, not just names!"

There was a Bored Meeting this week. There was the usual parade from "Call to the audience" when person after person, taxpayers, parents, employees, got up to talk about malfeasance, misfeasance and general distrust of Duchy leadership. Listening to the audiotape you can just see the Bored and the Duke staring stonily into space. There was the usual person complaining that their child was harrassed and discriminated against. It is a pain in the butt to go to a Bored meeting, fill out the little card, wait your turn, which won't come because it always runs over time, coming back the next meeting to wait again. I have trouble believing that someone would go to that much trouble to air a completely baseless complaint. Her child probably was discriminated against. One of the other speakers also commented on the total failure of the Duchy grievance process to ever fix ANYTHING. Maybe if the Duchy would force administrators to pay attention and act on employee and parent complaints, we would not need Customer Service Training and Cultural Proficiency. Actually WE don't need the training however apparently the occupants of the Castle could use all of that training plus some classes in basic check balancing. ($700,000 mistake in the books 2 years ago?!) Fortunately, the call to the audience has a time limit so soon the Bored and the Duke had gone back to telling each other how involved, concerned, compassionate, progessive and just all around wonderful they are.

Technology mysteries revealed

The Dots have been wondering why the brand new computers in the SNEAC building are so slooooooow. (When your computer is slow, you have lots of time for wondering.) This week they think they might have solved the mystery. As you might know information on networks travels in packets. The drawing to the right shows how the packets move in the Wide World. Looks pretty neat, huh? Now lets take a closer look at "Your Local Area Network" in the SNEAC building. Here's a picture of one of those packets moving from a SNEAC computer to the Local Area Network.


The mouse carrying this particular packet of information in his little mouse saddlebag was spotted under Silver's desk moving to the North. Is this what TS meant when they said that the SNEAC building was going wireless? A nest of these little network packet carriers was discovered in a bottom file drawer in Science. The Management of the SNEAC building is calling the exterminators and exhorting the Dots not to leave food lying around. Will this cut the speed to zero? Or is it so slow because the packet carriers are starving because the Dots are only leaving the crumbs around? Do they need to put out cookies and milk? Or is that for Brownies? Would Brownies be better than Rodents? Maybe TS should do a feasibility study?


Letters to the Editor
Re: The Rumor Mill
...and I quote:"This rejection was made by Human Resources without notifying anyone on the hiring committee. (rumor)"does this mean that an actual hiring committee already exists? I'd like to know who is involved on that?
Anonymous

Retraction
The rumor that a hiring committee actually exists was unfortunately left out the of "The Rumor Mill". We apologize for the omission. There is no evidence that any decisions in the Duchy are made by a committee or by any means other than consulting the Magic 8 ball. We would like to be able to tell the public who is actually using the Magic 8 ball but that information is a closely guarded secret.


Thought for the day
"There's no point in having a strategy if you aren't going to pretend to follow it."

- Pointy haired manager in Dilbert

Phfffr's phfffdoms

The U in DUCHY is supposed to stand for Unified, meaning "formed or united into a whole". Even the Town Crier has noticed that the right hand isn't speaking to the left hand. Isn't speaking...shoot, Right Hand doesn't even have Leftie's cell phone number! And then there's the question of whether the Duchy is following it's own policies. Clearly the Duchy is not united into a whole. Actually, it's pretty much a collection of warring fiefdoms. Currently the Keeper of the Castle Checkbook is making war on White Tornado with the Black Queen cheering from the sidelines. (We're not sure who she's cheering for.) The Department of Village and Peasant Resources is working overtime shredding or losing job applications to ensure that all of the Job beasts starve from lack of tasty, nutricious applications. Do they own stock in an Unemployment Insurance Company or what? The Black Queen seems to be waging a stealth campaign against TS, repeatedly threatening them with the Sword of Right-sizing. Dotland and the Village Librarians and Peasants have never done well at the feudal system, prefering to operate in the Information Age, not the Stone Age. So Dotland is secretly collaborating with the Lime Green Knight and TS to bring about our Manifest Destiny. We're all hoping that's a Good Thing, even though it sometimes seems that the Manifest Destiny of the Duchy is to collapse in a cloud of dust and noise.

The Black Queen, again!

The Black Queen is being her usual truthful, charming self.
Imagined conversation between the White Tornado and the Black Queen:
WT: Blue is leaving. Dotland will be too small to handle the workload. We'll need to replace her.
BQ: Oh, didn't I tell you? I just got orders directly from the White Queen and Duke Roger that Dotland will have to be cut by one position.

Yeah, right. We supposed to believe that the same Duke Roger who took months to hear that the Duchy had miscalculated insurance premiums to the tune of $700,000.00 is so attentive that he knows that Dotland is too large and needs to be cut. Get a grip.

Trouble in DestinyLand?

The Dots are deep in the midst of converting to Destiny. The Lime Green Knight seems to have underestimated the time required. He must have been listening to the Tin Woodsman again. If he only had a brain... In all of the meetings, Lime Green would always say "The whole district could be converted in a day." and Silver would say "No, that wouldn't be possible." You see, Silver had read the conversion instructions whereas Lime Green was apparently only getting his information from the Tin Woodsman. Maybe the Tin Woodsman needs to get on the Yellow Brick Road and ask the Wizard for a Brain. Actually, the whole Duchy needs the Yellow Brick Road. All of the denizens of the Castle could use a little more heart, a little more brains (well maybe a lot more brains) and a little more courage.

The end of an era

Blue is leaving!
Dotland is only one Dot smaller...but Blue was the foundation! Blue kept us together. Blue made us nicer Dots. Blue knew everything and, more importantly, knew WHY. What will we do without Blue?
Blue is leaving to join JTED. (Is that like a gang? Will there be colors? Will Blue stop wearing Blue? Will Blue stop being Blue Dot? Perish the thought! Once a Dot, always a Dot.)
On the good side, Blue will still be in SNEAC building and available for potlucks and general moral support.
In other news, the Coordinator Job beast has been sighted once again. The description is much more accurate. I am concerned about one thing. The Job is listed as Exempt Grade 2. Do the grades for Exempt positions differ from regular positions? Grade 2 is pretty low in regular positions. Peasants are Grade 4. So is the Coordinator less important than the Peasant? Oh, let's not go THERE. We all know that without Peasants, it all falls apart. Will the Coordinator be paid less than the Peasant? Hmmmmm.