Friday, December 01, 2006

Rant

It's been a while since I've "talked" about what's happening in the local offices.

I've noticed a few things lately. Namely, the first "wave" of people we lost (late last year, after the "pink emails" came out) were due to the layoff notice. Now, we are losing people who have TRIED to stick around but the workload and expectations have become too much.

Anyone, as I've said before, on the outside thinks that this job is easy. They think that all we do is push some paper around and give away all the taxpayer money while we sit back and laugh at all the money we make doing nothing.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING could be further from the truth.

Sadly, the Agency that was DHS is gone- and the good work put out by said agency is gone as well. Quality is at an all time low. Let's not even talk about "timeliness". I'm sure if FNS came in and read a bunch of Food Stamp cases they'd find that most were probably wrong. Not because we all just don't care- but because we have people hired off the street, who have had 15% of the training that new hires USED to get and they are just flying by the seat of their pants. Tenured workers are getting loaded with more and more and more- and most of the TANF and it's just TOO. MUCH.

Clients are suffering. People are going WITHOUT basic needs because we don't have the staff to see anyone like we used to before. Our local office has 15% of the tenured workers we used to have. FIFTEEN PERCENT. The workload has NOT slowed down or stopped.

Sinking. Those who were trying to hold on are leaving now.

How scary.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm reading a book right now about layoffs in this country and how they affect those laid-off, their families, those not laid who worry about their own jobs, and the community. They fight depression, they feel useless, they become afraid to take new chances because they're afraid of the rejection happening again. This whole nightmare we are being put through is much more far-reaching than can be fully understood. My office lost a tenured tanf worker today, and one of the temps is leaving in 3 weeks for a job in E. Texas. The biggest problem for our clients is that so many fall through the cracks. By definition, if you fall through the cracks, you are not considered. Say your application is accidentally attached to the wrong appt. notice (happens more frequently due to staff shortages and increased workload), you don't get scheduled, you don't get interviewed. You have to eventually reapply if you need the help. You are not in my office's statistics. We look timely because you fell through the cracks. That's just one small example. And if you want to see real lunacy, go to IndyStar.com for 11/30/06 and read the article about their planned privatizaion. It looks just like ours, but they are not going to make the mistakes Texas has made. I thought the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

10:36 PM
Anonymous said...

Amen.

Our lead time is over 30 days. Yet, we still get the forms to request exceptions to the delinquencies. Who has time to do those?

Clients are losing, and you are right- if their app is lost or misplaced, then it's never counted.

7:43 AM
Anonymous said...

I am a temporary worker, I've been at my office for a year, things are just now beginning to make sense to me and there is still soooo much more to learn. I had 3 wks of food stamp training, and a coworker gave me quick 30 minute lesson on childrens medicaid. Scary, huh? Our office has gone from 6 tenured workers to one tenured worker, me and another temp that has been out of class for a month.
We still consider ourselves lucky that we are not in the metroplex, even working till 9 or 10 in the evenings and w/ends just to try to stay caught up. How are you guys in the big cities manage to keep your sanity, I'll never know.

8:52 PM

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