Rant pants

Hi there.

So, I've decided that, rather than suppressing a rant, or risking ranting to my workmates, or boring Rachel with another rant, I'm going to rant on our blog! There's a slim chance it might make me feel better. There's also a risk that even more people might think I'm mad, but well if you really think about it, we're all mad aren't we!

I'm fed up! This place bites! Maybe it's the cabin-fever speaking from being trapped indoors since January (which is really a pretty light sentence compared to other Canadian winters), but it just seems that nothing around here works and we end up spending more and more time feeling our way through inefficient systems, or dinky little "pet" systems that suit only the one or two individuals who control the power, or the absence of systems because it never occurred to anyone that there was a need for one. By the way, don't expect this rant to make much sense - I haven't worked out yet how exactly all of these little pieces of frustration add up to a coherent conspiracy to make Ben's life miserable, but I'm quite sure I'll figure that out before long. Perhaps that's just it - it isn't a coherent whole, it's a thousand little terrorist acts by separate cells who don't really know what the others are doing anyway, and don't care, so long as there is jihad. They behold the jihad, for it is their system, and it is good!

I should put a disclaimer in case any Canadians are reading this - don't be too offended (but still don't come near me at the moment either) it isn't personally your fault that nothing works. But be warned that this place is a major pain in the arse to migrate to - and I'm an English speaker! Imagine not having very good English?

Everyone you meet is dumbfounded when you ask them the most basic questions, like they expect that everybody already knows what they need to know because everybody has lived here all their life. Their face reads: What? You don't know that? And then they probably think: well actually nobody has never asked and I'm not actually sure I know myself - but I've lived here all my life so I guess I should know, but I'm too embarrassed to say I don't know, so I'll just pretend that it's a stupid question and hope they go away. I end up having to be clairvoyant about what is the right question to ask. Now if I go away feeling like I'm stupid, can you imagine how eg an Indian migrant feels? They're probably getting attitude from people like: geez those Indians, they're really strange, they must do things really differently in India, are they from Mars? when really it's just that the locals are so short-sighted that they don't realise how entrenched they are in their own little clique systems and language.

In Subway: "what salads do you want?" "um, lettuce, tomato, onions and, er, capsicum" they reach for the cucumber, "No, capsicum" they reach for olives "Cap-si-cum, oh what do you call it here, bell peppers!" they're still dumbfounded and finally reach for the capsicum through a process of elimination (and meanwhile your sandwich has cucumber and carrot on it as well) "oh these, green peppers" like everybody knows they're called green peppers. Which is bull anyway because they're called bell peppers in the supermarket. And in any case, there's something called pepper that is a table condiment, as well as there being green peppercorns used in some dishes. There are also chilli peppers, some of which are green (and green chillies are different from jalapenos) but they're also called green peppers. So there's this perfectly good word "capsicum" that isn't getting used because people here somehow find it much less confusing to call five different things "peppers". But I'm the one who is stupid here! Not them!

Shall I just not bother? Don't ask for capsicum unless I can guess what they happen to call it in their dinky little store? My guess it that that is what a lot of people do. It is socially unacceptable in Canada to make a fuss. It is more important to be nice and mellow than it is to get things done. Canadians may be "nice" but this also tends to translate into "incompetent".

Sometimes I think knowledge is a curse. The more you know, the more idiots can completely frustrate you. And a certain kind of idiot seems to take sadistic pleasure in knowing that they're able to trump your knowledge with their ignorance.

The other day, the strangest thing happened. I was reading some mail my mother forwarded from Australia. I actually felt nostalgic for a time when information you get sent is "grokkable".

A pamphlet "Super Co-contribution: How it works" that came with a super statement I got. I look inside and at a glance I have "What is the super co-contribution?" "Am I eligible?" "How do I apply?" etc Within about 5 seconds I know what the pamphlet is about and whether or not I need to read on. This is typical in Australia - there is a very high level of thought gone into communications like this.

Compare this to an equivalent document I got from my current work in Canada. I open the package which has several sheets Letter size paper. "OMERS: Omissions period details" then a few personal details, my name and a membership number (bearing in mind I've never heard of OMERS and didn't know I was a member), then "The omission period cost is based on contributions that should have been paid had you contributed to the OMERS plan during the omission period..." and more details about something that I think I'm supposed to pay, including the amount and a due date. The amount is several thousand dollars and I'm alarmed at the suggestion I am liable for a large sum to god-knows-who, and why didn't anybody tell me. I scan through the document for any clues as to what OMERS even stands for - I find nothing. There are two forms labelled "Omission Period Member Election" and another official-looking form from Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency.

I've spent at least a minute getting this far and still have only a vague idea of what the package is about, except for an alarmingly large "bill". I look for further clues: my employee ID is listed so it's something directly connected with Human Resources at work at the school board. The Omission Period goes from May 29th to date, and May 29th is when I started my job. The other sheets remind me of sheets I filled out when I joined the Commonwealth Superannuaction Scheme, so I think this is something to do with superannuation, but I'm not sure because "Member Election" doesn't prove it isn't something else. In the end, the payment date isn't until May this year, so I put aside the package to figure out some other time.

At work a week later, I get mail telling me I've been made permanent and made it through the probation period (was I on probation? huh?) and that I'll get a package in the mail at home from the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System asking if I want to buy into their pension plan retrospectively. All this time, I would have been having a cut of my pay going into this plan, only I was on "probation". Nice of them to tell me all this background information that may well have had a significant impact on what we're doing (just as well we didn't eg commit to a house mortgage on assumption of a certain amount of take-home pay or anything). At least this second package has more explanatory information (like actually spelling out acronyms, not that they'd ever need to because "everybody knows what OMERS is" - except of course everybody else who doesn't know) so I have half a chance. By now, I've had an extended conversation with our secretary to work out what's going on, and that only yielded a vague idea of the situation anyway.

This is typical of how things work around here. People send out minimal information and then expect you to work out the rest through word-of-mouth. In fact, I don't think it ever really occurs to anybody to write anything down at all. "That would take too long". And everybody here is just used to getting information verbally, and having a string of contacts that allows them to do that - which usually means there is a boffin in every building that everybody asks for everything - and everything falls apart when that person leaves. And the flip side of the equation is that if you did take the trouble to write things down, you'd find that nobody reads them because instead they go ask their neighbour what it's about.

The problem is that nobody bloody reads anything! Probably because they can't even read properly! So they never get any practice at it. So they don't know what a well-presented mailout looks like because they've never seen one! They don't understand how to communicate to somebody who doesn't already know the answers! They don't even take on board the fact that it might be their responsibility to do so! But they don't even imagine that it is possible (without of course making the argument that it would be a huge amount of work that they could never make time for - not in between fielding phonecalls from all the people who didn't understand the last mailout!

So my problem is this. I work well with things written down. Then they're on paper and you don't have to clog up your brain remembering them. Everybody else here works on word-of-mouth, which also means that you get inaccurate information passed between several people. Others are used to that, and often use the "we didn't get time" excuse to hide the fact that their organisational skills just can't bear the weight of anything more complicated than the simplest tasks. And yet knowing what they could do to fix things only seems to make me more and more frustrated at seeing things made a meal of time and time again.

What good is knowing how to fix things if the people who can change things won't listen to you?

And who is to say I'm right anyway? I'm talking about cultural change. Right or wrong, maybe my ways just won't work for people who are used to muddling through by word-of-mouth information?

Actually, the school board has a cultural change policy that schools should become "Professional Learning Communities". I'm privileged to have worked in what I would call professional learning communities (Methodology Division at the ABS for example) and I know what it is like. It is much more effective - policy decisions are made for the right reasons, and they actually stick instead of being subject to fads. The School Board's PLC policy is a step in the right direction - if only people actually understood what it meant and were genuinely committed to it.

Sigh! Torn between trying to change the world, or just giving up and going to sip a pina-colada by the beach somewhere. Too bad there aren't any beaches around here.

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This post was proudly brought to you by Wendrick the Wendigo (he is from Bendigo).