I admit, I was sort of taken aback by it. In fact, I felt a little bit offended, but I can't put my finger on exactly why. Heck, it's an atta-boy for doing what I'm supposed to be doing! (Some people got nasty-grams because they left their speakers or printers turned on, or something.)
Why does this bother me? Is it because I don't like someone coming into "my" classroom to check up on me? Honestly, I'm not sure why, but I know that getting this note definitely unsettles me.
I do know one plausible answer that is not correct: yes, I'm bothered by the fact that someone was paid to do this, and they probably got paid a lot more than the cost of a couple of watt-hours of electricity from a weekend of wasted speaker juice, but that is not why I'm so uncomfortable about finding this note this morning.
Any thoughts?
16 comments:
Let's see Darren. You are to uphold a certain standard, conserve electricity. To enforce a standard, one must be inspected by another. You were inspected. You were given the result of the inspection.
So what is the problem?
Yeah, because it's your mother's job to tell you to pick up your socks and her job alone. Anyone else who presumes to tell you to be a better person is nagging at you to be as refined and elevated as they are with neither inherent authority and credibility of a mommy nor the justification that you're infringing anyone else's rights. They have no justification beyond their moral superiority and that means their just being presumptuous. That's real annoying.
I think it's the lack of trust your employer is demonstrating. Just my thought based on how I would feel if it were my classroom.
Perhaps you're uncomfortable being under surveillance by the "Green Police"?
I genuinely don't know, Steve, that's why I'm soliciting ideas.
Maybe it's just the pettiness of the note.
Darren
Before I met you I worked for a brigade executive officer who had a name for such people: Oxygen Thief.
I think it’s the pettiness of the task and standard. I wonder how much that man cost and how much he “saves” in energy....does he justify his cost to the public treasury. I know you do.
OK, I've thought further on this, and I reject your West Point allusion. A more accurate comparison would be to a PMI inspection on Saturday evening--always possible, definitely unannounced, and certainly not appreciated.
??? You are going to have to explain that one to me Darren. PMI inspection on Saturday is a valid inspection on your room to evaluate the upholding of standards within the unit. Sure it is not appreciated, but what inspection is? But, how else is the command supposed to know the status of upholding the standards within the unit without inspecting?
Remember the cards by the door where the OC would write down the deficiencies? That way you knew someone was in the room. I appreciated that especially when I saw something out of place - I then knew the inspector moved it, not an intruder.
That you aren't used to it in a civilian environment I understand. That it is inappropriate in any way I disagree. Whether the note is snarky is immaterial in my eyes.
I would ask why there was such an animal - ROI is probably pretty low. Our district installed expensive new motion sensitive switches which cost far more than simply ordering the janitors to turn off the lights. (The faculty always did, but the janitors would leave them on and people driving by complained).
Curmudgeon
See my comments about Oxygen Thieves.
we get these all the time too. We also like to think about the wasted money used to print up those cute little "atta-boy" cards.
Maybe it doesn't help that they wasted a piece of paper on this. Save one resource, squander another?
Maybe it was a cleaner who stuck it there?
That's pretty darn funny. I got a similar note, but one of the "nasty" ones for forgetting a light on at my desk. My first thought was that it was a cleaning person that stuck it there, but I was taken aback nonetheless. I didn't mean to, and I don't need reminding I made a mistake
Having some annoying little busy body leave a note like this for me would actually make me want to leave the lights on next time, just for spite.
Last year in a fit of austerity, our central administration sent inspectors out to see how many rooms had left computers, televisions, scanners, printers, what have you, on during weekends and holidays. This was our Energy Audit.Our campus won, but the irony is that the newer the school facility is, the more efficiently it is designed. Hardly a fair contest.
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