2002-11-20 - 6:06 p.m.
Our story so far....as previously reported, one of our senior staff members left a couple of months ago-- my friend (and everybody's friend) Mindy, the six-foot-two blond dynamo. And in her absence, I have been assigned the very difficult and delicate job of deciding on petitions for fee waivers/refunds.
Well, the job has been filled, and we waited a long month for the New Guy to arrive. Little did he know (play sinister music here...) that he was walking into not-exactly-wide-open arms. First of all, he was not even anyone's first choice of candidate for the job. He didn't make a good impression in the interviews-- I for one gave him low marks for bad grammer (Wouldn't you be able to avoid using the word "ain't" in a job interview?), hand wringing, knuckle-popping, and an almost complete lack of ability to express himself in complete sentences.
Second, his closest cohort in the office is a person who also applied for this job and was passed over for no good reason, other than a personality conflict with the boss. So cohort is somewhat bitter. ("I'll be damned if I am going to TRAIN him now.") The atmosphere in that end of the office is.... shall we say....a bit thick.
And last, but not least, he has some very big and shiny shoes to fill. Mindy was probably the most popular person ever to work here, and everyone has extremely high expectations for the performance of "her" department.
I don't know if the New Guy is aware of all this. Probably not. But even if he isn't, I can't begin to fathom his attitude. It seems to me like just common sense that if you were beginning a new job, you would spend some time getting to know people and understanding the work before you started rolling your eyes.
But New Guy has been rolling his eyes since day one. Even in the first conversation we had, on his first day when the boss brought him over and asked me to explain the functions of my department and introduce my administrative assistant, New Guy acted bored and pissed off. During my very abbreviated, and getting shorter by the minute, explanation, New Guy could barely maintain a focus. Before I finished, he breaks in with, "So, yea, yea, yea.....Why do I need to know this?"
UH....because you are supposed to care?
And then came the day I (thought I) had been looking forward to: the day I could hand over the responsibility for petitions. As directed by the boss, I scheduled a time to sit down with New Guy and teach him how to do it. There is a lot to learn: how to research the student's academic history and financial records, interpreting the policies, coordinating with people in other offices for verification.
I had a pile of petitions, waiting to be answered. I had gathered up all the materials I could find to help him-- contact lists, form letters, schedules, the written policy document. And we sat down together. He grabbed the pile of petitions and began to flip through them, skimming, making little comments, snap judgements. I showed him the computer screens, attempting to share what I had learned about this sometimes heartbreaking process.
"Yea, yea, yea...." he says, rolling his eyes. "I got it."
Some part of me just wanted to gather up all of those petition letters and march out with them. Tell him it isn't really his job after all. Suddenly I didn't want this arrogant jerk passing judgement on "my" suicide attempt girl, or the woman who had the emergency cesearean, or the man whose mother died. I wanted to protect them at least from his contempt. As much as I have disliked this task, I never took lightly the responsibility involving people's personal lives. But there is nothing I can do, because it was never really my job in the first place.
I was out yesterday, and I came in today to see by the e-mail trail that New Guy has already made one bad judgement on a financial case involving a large amount of money. His response, when this was pointed out, was: "My bad."
He also made a point of telling me that he was going to propose a new petition policy. "I just don't think a death in the family is a good reason for dropping out of school." he says. "There's nothing about that to prevent you from going to class."
Maybe he has never had any tragedy in his life. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but sometimes people just don't develop empathy until they have to go through something in their own lives. Maybe he thinks the world belongs to those who make light of it.
He's young, he's arrogant, he's been hired for an important job requiring some maturity and experience..... and he's in way over his head.
Actually I hope I am wrong about him. I really do. I hope that I will get to know him and find out that he was just nervous and overwhelmed. I hope to hear that he is a good supervisor.... or even a good friend or a good dad. I really don't want to be right about this. But I'm afraid I am.
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