Monday, October 19, 2009

Applicants and phone calls

This week has switched gears. I have been working helping people to recieve applications. I have learned I do not know Newark well at all nor can I give good directions. This experience is a new lesson in selective talking and listening. I have also spent this week trying to figure out all of the technology in the building. I have learned that it is much easier now to fax or e-mail rather than mail letters.

Shine Some Light on the School Budgetary Processes

Today I read an email just to make sure that it wasn't junk mail. I am glad that I did... this time.

I received an email from the folks at Sunlight on Schools. I am still learning about the organization, the people behind it, and their goals, but it seems almost immediately to me as at least a good resource for information... and possibly much more!

The Sunlight On Schools project has gobs of data re the budgetary processes of Delaware's school districts, the salaries of those persons involved, and much more!

There is also a blog that is somehow related... or maybe they just reported on the same thing... I am still reading... The Caesar Rodney Institute Blog.

The first thing that struck me from looking at the salaries of the various individual District Superintendents, was that in addition to their high salaries, and the contract perks that are largely still hidden in contract language, many are also drawing significant amounts of overtime pay. I always thought that overtime pay was not applicable for exempt-management positions. Well not these folks! They are ripping us off merely by having their position at all, then adding to that they are drawing large salaries, adding hidden contract perks, and now I see that they are also getting OT!?!?

This certainly deserves a closer look. Anybody out there understand this? Care to explain it to us? Please do....

Saturday, October 17, 2009

In Defense of Weather

Almost every day I hear our media announce that... weather caused traffic accidents, death, and injuries on our highways. These are false and slanderous unsupported accusations. I feel compelled to take up the unpopular defense of our weather systems. Even if Pro Bono.

We human drivers of our highways have the responsibility to use due care in the operation of motor vehicles. The weather has no such duty. We have the affirmative responsibility to slow down and drive more cautiously in adverse weather conditions. It is not the fact that our weather must slow down for us!

The injuries and death on our highways for the most part are due to human negligence and reckless behaviour. And yet many of us and our media, continue to malign and blame our innocent weather systems for this carnage. I can no longer stand idly by while this misdirection of responsibility is splashed about our communication networks, spreading and instilling the insidious lack of personal responsibility which has infected our culture.

I will see you in Court!

Friday, October 09, 2009

A new employee

Hello
I am the new employee of Larry Sullivan's law office. I will be working with him in the upcoming months to help him with his technological plans for his law office. I am currently a student of Delaware Technical and Community College with a Paralegal Major and Business General Major. I am a vivid reader who finds interest in nonfiction and fiction. I will be posting on this blog every week. This blog will become a combination of my recent work experiences at the office and current topics that spark my interest. I will also have a blog on The Reading Room that can be read every week.