Some Yahoo standing in my classroom doorway tried to divert my attention from the script, "Open your test books to the Language test. The page should look like this. Find the Language section on your answer sheets…"
He knew that I knew he was there. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and then back again. "Are you Jerry?"
"No I’m not," I answered without looking up. "…We will begin by doing some sample items together."
"Do you know when he’ll be in?"
I tossed the script onto my desk, approached the stranger, and pointed to the unlocked classroom across the hall. "Jerry must be in, his door is open."
But before I could turn away and get back to the business at hand, he responded, "No he isn’t. I had someone unlock the door for me."
"Then have a corrections officer page him for you."
"Do you know if he uses all those computers?"
Before you think I’m one callous son-of-a-bitch, let me just say, an introduction would have been nice. For all I know, he could’ve been Jack Brandenburg or some other politician looking for an excuse to slam the Michigan Department of Corrections (okay, maybe not Jack—I’ve seen him wandering our hallways before). "I have no idea," I answered. "Ask Jerry." I returned to my classroom and the script.
Here’s what I found out about the mystery man. He works for the Michigan Department of Information Technology; DIT for short. Not too long ago our fearless leader of the Prison Educational Programs cancelled our outside vendor contract—no more JST Technologies—instead, DIT would service our computers for cheaper. Unfortunately, now that DIT has our attention, they raised their service fees by $200 more per computer per year. As a counter to this latest development, our fearless leader sent us a memo stating that we should decrease the number of computers in our classroom to 5 (one teacher station & 4 student stations) and the rest of the computers should be moth-balled. Perhaps as a counter to her counter, the DIT man—you guessed it—counted the computers so they can bill us accordingly. So the shell game continues. Incidentally, Jerry does not fall under the educational programs, although he’s been using the school’s computers—hmmm, who will sort that mess out?
"For Sample A, read the sentence and look at the punctuation marks below the sentence. Decide which punctuation mark, if any, has been left out …"
11 comments:
Capitalism at it's finest.
that is the cutest freaking puppy ever...and isn't it lovely how gov't works? Oh and by the way - I check him out - way out before I met with him..I'm paranoid that way ;)
All (or most) organizations are dysfunctional -- not just the government. Human nature?
Another fine glimpse into our zany prison education system.
JR. Let's see if our exgov who had a blanket order with EDS and found a 350,000 dollar a year job with same company when he left office can fix it. It is the only reason we have the computers.
He works as the manufacturing czar now and believes KIA motors is just to die for. MW :)
Big business is something else. It makes you wonder how all those corporate executives sleep at night.
I love the government...
There's nothing more frustrating than thoughtless interuptions from people who put the "dip" in serendipity, just strolling along as if their unscheduled presence should give everyone pause.
Bureaucracy = Bad
Starting with families, I think all groups are totally messed up. I have to go with Erik on this one -- human nature for sure!
There are nerds who have low social skills. They are so into what they're doing, they hardly notice you.
Ivan
Jim, I agree with you. A first introduction as to who that Dude was would have been appropriate. Watch what you say before knowing who those people really are!!!!! --Bro, Ron
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