For the past months, I have been flooded with requests for paperwork! I do understand the necessity of writing evaluation reports on my students’ progress… yet I am wondering how many of these reports are too many… Maybe public servants who are in full-time French training can be assessed every month… They get an average of 140 hour training monthly, therefore one is expecting some change.
What about someone like Susan, who hardly gets 24 hours per month?… Is it really needed that I do write reports, which I have to say are redundant from one month to another, on her progress? I do not think so! Yet I am asked to write such systematic reports as if she were in full-time training… I do not even remember how many of these quite useless reports I have submitted in the course of the past six months! On top of everything, I was asked to write reports while she was no longer in training… between October the 1st and the end of November 2008.
I did the same for Seema who also had an average of 24 hours per month until she left for a boot camp. For some unknown reasons, David and James were left alone: I only had to write a final report once they were done with their training.
If we look at the number of public servants who are on language training, I can imagine the amount of paper landing on some bureaucrats’ desks every month! Do they read them? Well… I would be tempted to say nope! I have been training PSAC’s employees for five years and I used to write quarterly evaluation progress reports. Sometimes I was asked questions by HR regarding such or such student… I was always a bit surprised since answers to those questions were written in black on white in my exhaustive evaluation reports… until the day I was told that no one actually read them!
I have a job to do and I do not really have time to waste on stuff that is not really important… how many times will I have to write that Susan is progressing regularly, that she has no problems, that I have no recommendations, that she will be ready for her oral test at the end of March? I think that, next time, I will only copy and paste what I already wrote several times and then, change the date…
This afternoon, when I came back from work and opened my emails, I saw another request… this time, it appears they want to know something regarding language training costs. When I tried to open the document attached to this email, I could not… and Windows said it was an unknown document that could not be opened. I concluded that it was some Intranet document circulating in the government… anyways I wrote back asking them to tell me exactly what they wanted in the body of a message or, if the document is some kind of form I have to fill out, send it through regular mail!
I am very busy these days and I have no patience at all for red tape administration!… If they want to know the exact amount of money they paid me in 2008, they can ask Finance… I am sure that they keep track of those details and they would be more than pleased to provide them with this kind of information… Why, in the name of God, are they asking ME?
It is starting to look like harassment to me!… I do not take it personally though because I am aware that they are asking the same from all language providers! I would not be surprised that auditors from the Bureau de la Vérificatrice générale are scrutinizing all Departments’ expenses related to SLE training… Well… it looks like it… I have been doing this for many years and I never received so many requests in such a short period of time! Could it be that new policies are now in effect? I have no clue… all I can say is that it makes my work much less enjoyable than it used to be! Answering those requests is time consuming and I really do not see the point!
In a way I am glad that I started teaching individuals online outside the government… it is like a breath of fresh air these days! Although I still like having training sessions with Susan (and miss my former students who are now attending language schools full-time)… I am not sure I want to take on other students in that Department… unless this non sense of paperwork stops some time after the end of the fiscal year… I shall see!
“Un réactionnaire est un somnambule qui marche à reculons”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
How much Paperwork is ENOUGH?
For the past months, I have been flooded with requests for paperwork! I do understand the necessity of writing evaluation reports on my students’ progress… yet I am wondering how many of these reports are too many… Maybe public servants who are in full-time French training can be assessed every month… They get an average of 140 hour training monthly, therefore one is expecting some change.
What about someone like Susan, who hardly gets 24 hours per month?… Is it really needed that I do write reports, which I have to say are redundant from one month to another, on her progress? I do not think so! Yet I am asked to write such systematic reports as if she were in full-time training… I do not even remember how many of these quite useless reports I have submitted in the course of the past six months! On top of everything, I was asked to write reports while she was no longer in training… between October the 1st and the end of November 2008.
I did the same for Seema who also had an average of 24 hours per month until she left for a boot camp. For some unknown reasons, David and James were left alone: I only had to write a final report once they were done with their training.
If we look at the number of public servants who are on language training, I can imagine the amount of paper landing on some bureaucrats’ desks every month! Do they read them? Well… I would be tempted to say nope! I have been training PSAC’s employees for five years and I used to write quarterly evaluation progress reports. Sometimes I was asked questions by HR regarding such or such student… I was always a bit surprised since answers to those questions were written in black on white in my exhaustive evaluation reports… until the day I was told that no one actually read them!
I have a job to do and I do not really have time to waste on stuff that is not really important… how many times will I have to write that Susan is progressing regularly, that she has no problems, that I have no recommendations, that she will be ready for her oral test at the end of March? I think that, next time, I will only copy and paste what I already wrote several times and then, change the date…
This afternoon, when I came back from work and opened my emails, I saw another request… this time, it appears they want to know something regarding language training costs. When I tried to open the document attached to this email, I could not… and Windows said it was an unknown document that could not be opened. I concluded that it was some Intranet document circulating in the government… anyways I wrote back asking them to tell me exactly what they wanted in the body of a message or, if the document is some kind of form I have to fill out, send it through regular mail!
I am very busy these days and I have no patience at all for red tape administration!… If they want to know the exact amount of money they paid me in 2008, they can ask Finance… I am sure that they keep track of those details and they would be more than pleased to provide them with this kind of information… Why, in the name of God, are they asking ME?
It is starting to look like harassment to me!… I do not take it personally though because I am aware that they are asking the same from all language providers! I would not be surprised that auditors from the Bureau de la Vérificatrice générale are scrutinizing all Departments’ expenses related to SLE training… Well… it looks like it… I have been doing this for many years and I never received so many requests in such a short period of time! Could it be that new policies are now in effect? I have no clue… all I can say is that it makes my work much less enjoyable than it used to be! Answering those requests is time consuming and I really do not see the point!
In a way I am glad that I started teaching individuals online outside the government… it is like a breath of fresh air these days! Although I still like having training sessions with Susan (and miss my former students who are now attending language schools full-time)… I am not sure I want to take on other students in that Department… unless this non sense of paperwork stops some time after the end of the fiscal year… I shall see!
“Un réactionnaire est un somnambule qui marche à reculons”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt