mycrofft
Still crazy but elsewhere
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- 48
- 48
I have been instructing as a volunteer for three years going on four. I have had slack periods lasting months, and I have had stretches where I was teaching two classes a week, (one time, three).
And I Have About Had It.
Falling customer service, climbing student and instructor fees, my dislike of being "handled" or "managed",organizational absolute resistance to improvement and suggestion unless it originates with paid staff, paperwork more intricate than that of private companies for less service to customers, and being told that as an instructor "…you are a tiny part of a very small portion of this organization" (by a paid IT expert moved into a volunteer-management position). Tortuous and replicative means to schedule classes and find out when I am needed. Employees afraid to answer email, or answering email and verbal questions with unresponsive boilerplate ("fogging"). These do not motivate me to help them (notice I don't think of ARC as "us").
As a private instrutor, I have two pieces of paper to turn in (a class roster and my expense sheet), they return emails promptly and honestly, and they have an 800 number where I can reach someone and talk to them, not a call center or a toll number (sometimes) like the ARC. AND I get paid, and am supplied with materials for free, occasionally including manikins shipped from and back to HQ!!
ARC? I have to get on the phone to a call center in Pennsylvania and verbally report my roster after each class (within 24 hrs but supposed to do it immediately); with add-ons, roster errors and just the basic grades (S and U, not P and F, mind you), this can easily take twenty or thirty minutes. And then I have all these original hardcopy tests and roster etc I am stuck with since, once my manager has a copy of the roster (and rosters from classes away from the office are faxed in) they or (s)he is/are uninterested in keeping hardcopies. Add having to get the hard copy of student assessments and my required instructor after-action (on which I use the margins as much as the blanks because the questions are so limited and fail to capture the class issues) to my manager, and you have a sort of FUBAR picture.
I enjoy teaching, especially professionals, and this offers lots of opportunities, but it is getting just too ridiculous. Especially the part where the emperor is wearing new clothes (deficient process and policies we can't discuss).
In days gone by (ah, 2011, I remember you well…) I could have just volunteered at the little local offices and bypass the mothership, but National dissolved much of the local offices and coagulated them into a regional office the boundaries of which are over three hours' drive away.
So, anyone having good experiences teaching with ARC? AM I stuck in some sort of lizard pit? (one step better than a snake pit).
And I Have About Had It.
Falling customer service, climbing student and instructor fees, my dislike of being "handled" or "managed",organizational absolute resistance to improvement and suggestion unless it originates with paid staff, paperwork more intricate than that of private companies for less service to customers, and being told that as an instructor "…you are a tiny part of a very small portion of this organization" (by a paid IT expert moved into a volunteer-management position). Tortuous and replicative means to schedule classes and find out when I am needed. Employees afraid to answer email, or answering email and verbal questions with unresponsive boilerplate ("fogging"). These do not motivate me to help them (notice I don't think of ARC as "us").
As a private instrutor, I have two pieces of paper to turn in (a class roster and my expense sheet), they return emails promptly and honestly, and they have an 800 number where I can reach someone and talk to them, not a call center or a toll number (sometimes) like the ARC. AND I get paid, and am supplied with materials for free, occasionally including manikins shipped from and back to HQ!!
ARC? I have to get on the phone to a call center in Pennsylvania and verbally report my roster after each class (within 24 hrs but supposed to do it immediately); with add-ons, roster errors and just the basic grades (S and U, not P and F, mind you), this can easily take twenty or thirty minutes. And then I have all these original hardcopy tests and roster etc I am stuck with since, once my manager has a copy of the roster (and rosters from classes away from the office are faxed in) they or (s)he is/are uninterested in keeping hardcopies. Add having to get the hard copy of student assessments and my required instructor after-action (on which I use the margins as much as the blanks because the questions are so limited and fail to capture the class issues) to my manager, and you have a sort of FUBAR picture.
I enjoy teaching, especially professionals, and this offers lots of opportunities, but it is getting just too ridiculous. Especially the part where the emperor is wearing new clothes (deficient process and policies we can't discuss).
In days gone by (ah, 2011, I remember you well…) I could have just volunteered at the little local offices and bypass the mothership, but National dissolved much of the local offices and coagulated them into a regional office the boundaries of which are over three hours' drive away.
So, anyone having good experiences teaching with ARC? AM I stuck in some sort of lizard pit? (one step better than a snake pit).
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