Sally was not the only one. Another staff member lost his job on Monday, too. In addition, a program director who teaches accounting was told that this would be his last term at the college: in five weeks, he, too, will be out of a job.
Today, as part of my feeble attempt to earn my faculty development stipend, I attended a workshop on fostering creativity and innovation in organizations. I got up at 5:30 a.m. on a day I would normally ignore until about 8:30 a.m. (painful when you work until 10:20 p.m. the night before). Bleary-eyed, I trundled in my old dusty Ford Focus up to Northwest Portland in spitting rain, found a place to park, signed in with a seriously scary security guard, hiked through a huge office building in search of the conference room, and eventually received my sticky name tag. The two woman sitting at the registration table, for some reason, looked dumbfounded to see me. Maybe because they didn't know me and they knew everyone else? That's all I can think of. Otherwise their behavior makes no sense.
“There's coffee,” one woman said, pointing. I followed her finger and found deliciously hair-raising coffee in urns on a back table, but only non-dairy creamer (Which is worse, dairy or non-dairy? Remind me to ask my naturopath). I carried my cup, half-full, toward the front table where one person was sitting, planning to bravely introduce myself. I was waylaid. The facilitator (call me Bud!) barred my path and held out a deck of cards. “Pick a card!” he ordered. I did, slipping it in my pocket.
“Don't let me walk out of here with it!” I laughed, trying to be friendly. A woman standing nearby smiled politely. I was nervous so I had to say something else.
“Wouldn't it be funny if you could buy playing cards individually to replace the ones that get lost? My brother was a notorious cheater.” Which is a total lie, as far as I know, but the words “notorious cheater” are just inherently funny. I was grinning, expecting someone to say something like, “Wow,” or “So was mine!”
“We never cheated in my family,” the woman sniffed, not looking at me, and sipped her coffee.
I didn't know what to say after that, so I drifted away toward my original destination, where I met a lovely woman named Lynne who apparently works as a trainer at some big manufacturing company, I didn't catch the name. Each time I go to one of these workshops, when I introduce myself as an instructor at a career college, they look at me like I'm from another planet. Like, what's the difference between being a corporate trainer and a teacher? She teaches people hardskills and softskills, just like I do. The only difference is my students pay to take the training, whereas her students get paid.
I'm digressing. I mention this workshop because the topic was about how management can foster creativity and innovation in the organization. One of the ways management can help its workers be innovative is by not punishing them when they offer suggestions on how to improve the company. Sally (remember Sally?) apparently went to the college president recently and passionately expressed her belief that the school could be doing more to improve effectiveness and efficiency. She presented a list of suggestions (rumor has it). What happens if management is narrow-minded, controlling, and territorial? A lively discussion followed.
Now we see what happens, for real, and it is not pretty. Sally's suggestions came home to roost in the form of a pink slip. You're outta here! That's what you get for being loyal, for caring enough to offer suggestions, and for busting your ass to put on a well-organized graduation event, and then emailing us at six-freaking a.m. on Monday morning to thank us all for being there! That'll teach you... you loyal, hard-working, committed (former) employee, you.
Speaking of dead and dying roosters, more heads are on the chopping block. If enrollments don't rise fast, two other instructors will be gone, and with one of them for all intents and purposes goes the entire paralegal program. Could this get any worse?
They hired two high-powered marketing/sales executives last month to boost enrollments. I hope it works. But who is going to teach all those students they entice into our classrooms? (Oh wait, that's what adjuncts are for.) It seems to me we are experiencing the perfect storm: the convergence of tightening government regulations, poor academic quality, and years of mismanagement. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a student of management to watch the ship founder and go under, just another career college, wrecked on the rocks of ineptitude.
I'm ok for another five weeks. After that, all bets are off. I may get to work tonight and find a pink slip in my mailbox. Thanks for all the fish. I'm outta here!
