Prompt: "I don't mean to sound unreasonable, but . . ."
The Department of Social Services where I worked was divided into Sections and Teams. Each Team was assigned a number.
I worked on Day Care Team 50. We placed children in day care homes with women (and they were all women) who were licensed day-care providers. This was in New York, which required people caring for children to be licensed.
Jane Raven was the Supervisor of Team 50. She was an M.S.W. which means she had a Master's of Social Work degree. She was highly respected within Social Services for her skills as a social worker. That's probably what should count in any Department called Social Services, but it wasn't everything. I don't mean to sound unreasonable, but Jane was also known throughout the Department for not being a good bureaucrat.
I think that changed, and the needle moved a bit toward the direction of bureaucracy, when the Department put in a requirement for a new form of paperwork. Please do not kid yourself. This was not the first time we were given paperwork to do. We used to have to do more paperwork in the Department of Social Services than in the Army. I know.
We had to justify our existence to the taxpayers. I know, I know, there is a myth that government workers have never been accountable to anyone. Again, I don't want to sound unreasonable, but that is a cow patty.
Anyway, when we got this new paperwork to fill out, Jane made it clear to us in Team 50 that it had to be filled out. No ifs, ands or buts, or it would be her butt and ours if we didn't do it.
We did it. Then we didn't have to do it after a while because after a while, the Department stopped requiring it. Jane's butt was no longer in danger of being in a sling.
For one final time here I don't want to sound unreasonable but, it may have been just as important to us that our own butts were no longer in danger of being in a sling.
P.S.
When I started writing this piece, I was going to tell you the amazing story of how Day Care Team 50 fought child abuse and neglect with far more families than even the underworked workers of the understaffed Child Protective Services unit did. One of Team 50's parents fried her son's face in a frying pan on a hot stove, but there were many other stories Team 50 could tell. I don't want to sound unreasonable, but we'll save those for another time.
(-30- The End.)
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