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Antiwork

I work at a school district, and our superintendent would rather have hundreds of people quit or call out sick with COVID than bring back remote work

I'm just a regular office joe at a big urban school district (think HR, IT, payroll, etc) and not a teacher. So I'm not going to speak to the experiences of educators because they might have good experiences under the leadership so far. Want to get that out of the way. But a new superintendent was hired this year. (with the highest pay in our district's history) And within a week of being on the job, his rich boomer ass decided he wanted all of his HQ office staff to return to the building 5 days a week with zero exceptions. No hybrid, no flexible hours, no working from home if you are quarantined, no special exceptions if your wife has cancer, NOTHING. So all several thousand of us were forced back into the cramped HQ building (which is falling apart and bought by a corrupt ex-board member. But that's…


I'm just a regular office joe at a big urban school district (think HR, IT, payroll, etc) and not a teacher. So I'm not going to speak to the experiences of educators because they might have good experiences under the leadership so far. Want to get that out of the way.

But a new superintendent was hired this year. (with the highest pay in our district's history) And within a week of being on the job, his rich boomer ass decided he wanted all of his HQ office staff to return to the building 5 days a week with zero exceptions. No hybrid, no flexible hours, no working from home if you are quarantined, no special exceptions if your wife has cancer, NOTHING. So all several thousand of us were forced back into the cramped HQ building (which is falling apart and bought by a corrupt ex-board member. But that's another story.)

Lots of people quit or retired because of this decision, esp highly skilled and most experienced workers. So lots of departments are experiencing critical shortages and are just getting by. The rest of us are so tired and burnt out from all the extra work – morale is in the toilet. Especially with all the other issues going on like high inflation and gas prices. And because the HQ is in a very expensive city on the US West Coast when, most people can't afford housing nearby and have to commute from far away. Many people doing 2hr – 5hr commutes every day, which is stupid because we all just come and sit in front of our computers. Also not very environmental at all.

Now we are seeing huge super spreader events throughout the building. Like I said, there's several thousand of us who work at the HQ and almost all of us have cubicles on an open floor. The only people with offices are managers. None of our windows open. Everybody crowds inside the same slow ass elevators everyday because there's 30 floors and no other way to get around. Now we are seeing the results with multiple outbreaks in only 2 weeks. Big numbers of people too. Like 20 people in one department, 10 more somewhere else a few days later. When our city is in the middle of a heatwave. Can't wait for winter!

He doesn't seem to give a shit though. He has a private floor so I guess he doesn't care. It's more important that he feels like a big boss by seeing us sitting at our desks. Meanwhile people are miserable or panicked. They're not even notifying people of the outbreaks a lot of the time, so people are freaking out and there's so much paranoia. You have moms with newborns and old timers with pacemakers gossiping about whether the person 3 aisles over got covid. It's exhausting. Our unions are trying to push back but the leaders and their cronies have ignored everything so far. I don't think striking an option, maybe thats why.

Shit is hanging on by a thread and there's gonna be consequences at some point. You can't have entire departments of people out sick or unstaffed and expect business to continue like usual. Especially when there is time sensitive things we deal with like cybersecurity and grants. Probably shouldn't have posted this since I still work there but oh well. Our local media seems to like him so it feels good to come out and say this.

Anyway don't treat your employees like shit! The whole point of a strong public school system is to have students grow up and get good jobs. Why give lip service to making the world better for students and then treat them like garbage if they graduate and come work for you.

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