Service

I'm kind of wondering what happened to service fields and the concept of public service in America. We all know the entire political system is in the toilet. But I am seeing a trend amongst all service positions that is really starting to get on my nerves. I got a letter home from school from my children's teachers. The stated that my parent-teacher conference times with them.  The teachers had chosen and given to me. One of the times was at 3:15. The other time was 5:00. Either teacher had obviously conferred with each other to see if the could sink up timing with each other or me. They just expected me to find sitters that could stay with my children multiple different times and then spend gas that has sky-rocketed to well beyond $3 a gallon to drive back and forth to the school 4 times. That's not to mention that my children would barely make it through the door before I had to be at the first appointment. I'm sure it was not a conspiracy to make things difficult for me. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that it was an epic failure in moving in the best interest of the people in which educators are supposed to serve. Standard protocol has always been to request 3 different times in order of preference in which the parent is available to meet. Now suddenly we are being assigned times without so much as our input? I think my response was legitimate and appropriate. In short my answer was...nope. I feel like this, if we're going to meet, than it will be at a mutually agreeable time. That's not a revolutionary concept, it's actually the original concept! The method of operation wasn't broken for me so there was nothing to fix. What's worse is that one teacher who I ended up having a phone conference with only reported the grades to me that I actually have access to online. Nothing more nothing less. I'll call it divine intervention that I did not inconvenience myself by finding a babysitter and going down to the school to meet with her. I'm not sure I could have kept the conversation respectable.
     I'm rambling now. I just needed to get this all off my chest. Public Service used to mean you were taken into the public trust to help members of society. You were funded by them [the public] to take care of their business. Anymore the public sector takes it's cues from the private sector. Secrecy, privacy, and somehow what seems like profitability even if it's not monetary gain now rule the public sector also. With little more than laws and statutes that are now being ignored or eradicated altogether, I predict things will get worse until people stand up and define terms that are once again agreeable for them and them hold workers to it.