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I'm going to scream now.
Aug. 28th, 2001 11:27 amSo last Wednesday Lydia filled out my hiring papers and left on vacation. She gave them to the division head (Big Red), who was supposed to sign off on them and pass them back to HR, who was supposed to send them over to the Dean's office for final approval, after which I would finally, after two full months working for an hourly wage with no benefits, be a regular full-time employee.
Six days have gone by. Empires have grown old while I've sent Big Red's admin assistant desperate e-mails and waited for her to e-mail me back. I finally reach her today, after leaving several unanswered voice mails.
Yes, Big Red has signed the papers. She's "looking them over." When will she be done looking them over? Well, probably by the end of the week. (It's Tuesday. She's had them since last Wednesday.) What's she looking them over for? To see if "we have enough money to pay you." She points out that while one of Lydia's grants has gone through, the clinical service contract hasn't finished churning through the red tape - and "we're paying you now out of division funds." (As if the division won't be promptly paid back out of the grants and contracts, as soon as the red tape gets slashed.) Oh, and she thinks the salary Lydia promised me is "a little high." It was the salary listed in the grant; ergo, it's the salary the granting agency funded. "Well, I don't know about that. I didn't write the grant." I give her Lydia's number on vacation, and hang up in despair.
So I call the grants office to find out when the contract - which has also been attempting to wend its way through the system since the end of June; I feel great solidarity with it - is going to finish being processed. I'd tried to call yesterday, got told "someone will call you back," and again waited fruitlessly by the phone while empires rose and fell. Today I stay on the line no matter what, spell Lydia's last name to four different people, and come away with... the lovely news that the person handling the contract went on vacation and won't be back until next week.
So apparently the contract needs to go through before Big Red's snotty little admin assistant will concede that there's money coming to pay my salary and sign off on my hiring papers, and God only knows when the contract is going to go through because the grants administrator handling it left on vacation. And I'll keep working for an hourly wage that's $100 per week less than I was promised, with no benefits, waiting for all of this to go through, and the poor clinic that wanted us July 1st will keep waiting for their psych services to get going. Unless they give up and withdraw the contract. I can't really say that I'd blame them.
I'm going to scream now.
Six days have gone by. Empires have grown old while I've sent Big Red's admin assistant desperate e-mails and waited for her to e-mail me back. I finally reach her today, after leaving several unanswered voice mails.
Yes, Big Red has signed the papers. She's "looking them over." When will she be done looking them over? Well, probably by the end of the week. (It's Tuesday. She's had them since last Wednesday.) What's she looking them over for? To see if "we have enough money to pay you." She points out that while one of Lydia's grants has gone through, the clinical service contract hasn't finished churning through the red tape - and "we're paying you now out of division funds." (As if the division won't be promptly paid back out of the grants and contracts, as soon as the red tape gets slashed.) Oh, and she thinks the salary Lydia promised me is "a little high." It was the salary listed in the grant; ergo, it's the salary the granting agency funded. "Well, I don't know about that. I didn't write the grant." I give her Lydia's number on vacation, and hang up in despair.
So I call the grants office to find out when the contract - which has also been attempting to wend its way through the system since the end of June; I feel great solidarity with it - is going to finish being processed. I'd tried to call yesterday, got told "someone will call you back," and again waited fruitlessly by the phone while empires rose and fell. Today I stay on the line no matter what, spell Lydia's last name to four different people, and come away with... the lovely news that the person handling the contract went on vacation and won't be back until next week.
So apparently the contract needs to go through before Big Red's snotty little admin assistant will concede that there's money coming to pay my salary and sign off on my hiring papers, and God only knows when the contract is going to go through because the grants administrator handling it left on vacation. And I'll keep working for an hourly wage that's $100 per week less than I was promised, with no benefits, waiting for all of this to go through, and the poor clinic that wanted us July 1st will keep waiting for their psych services to get going. Unless they give up and withdraw the contract. I can't really say that I'd blame them.
I'm going to scream now.
