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Although I'm sequeing out of the HR liaison role at work (glacially slowly), or at least becoming the oversight team leader for our newly formed group of three that will be handling HR administrivia, I get sucked into the issues that keep on happening in our little custodian group.
It's a doomed situation.
For years, the theatre tagged off the Physical Plant pool of custodians, in which we were charged a flat rate per year, which included all the supplies for the theatre. Back then it was only about $65,000 a year. The custodians (who I never ever met) worked nights, cleaning up after theatre events, occasionally giving the offices a trash emptying, that kind of thing. Decisions were made that since we weren't able to schedule these employees ourselves, we really needed to have our own custodial staff. I was skeptical, as the numbers guy.
That's where the trouble started. This must have been about 2007 when we made the switch.
Every staff custodian we've hired has been an utter failure, with lots of drama involved. We've been through five full time so far, each with a rasher of bizarreness (is that a word?) culminating in their eventually having to leave. None have been fired, but should have. Of course, the pay is abysmally low. $10 per hour plus (theoretical) university benefits. But why can't we hire someone stable?
We add student custodians in the mix, but in general, those have all been quiet hires and not much happens in that group of people.
This past year, we created a Lead Custodian position, paying a couple dollars more per hour, and having supervisor skill sets needed.
Yesterday, I got a call from our admin assistant after I left work, a voice mail actually. Rachel wanted to fill me in on a situation that occurred there yesterday afternoon. I didn't catch the call until about 5:30, but she told me what was up. It wasn't what I thought (there was a developing issue that morning between our operations manager and the assistant tech person I figured has blown up again).
About 4:30, 4 UNM police showed up and asked for Scott Palmer, our lead custodian. The escorted him (with or without handcuffs, I don't know), down to our development officer's work area and grilled him about an issue. From what I understand, he was taking some class or other and a handwriting analysis was involved. His writing sample has some incendiary language in it, referencing his military background from long ago. Whatever it was, freaked his professor out and she filed a complaint.
After that, he was escorted out of the building by two of the UNM police and the others held back to give a small briefing to Rachel. Scott's supervisor, Billy, was called.
So we don't know if we have a lead custodian right now. The 3/4 time custodian we had for two months quit on Feb 7. Two of the student custodians that were hired never even started working; they found other jobs somewhere else. It's a mess.
Scott's hire history with us has been a mess in itself, although he's been a reliable, hard-worker for over two years. Originally, he was hired in as a student. When he dropped a class, putting him below 6 credit hours, we had to scramble and found out he could be hired as a UNM Temp. He was paid that way for 6 months, but you can only temp 6 months before other arrangements have to happen. We rehired him as a student, since he had enough credit hours that semester (the guys is in his 50s, btw), but after two months, student employment suddenly terminated him--when I was on vacation, my sub entered 32.1 hours for one week in his pay time entry, putting him over the maximum a student can work. There was no recourse. We scrambled again and after a time got him back on as a Temp, although there were TWO months where we had to pay him through our Stage Labor contract as an independent contractor. THAT could have been weird.
After that last Temp position was ending, we decided to create the Lead Custodian position to fix the inequity situation that was created when two equal custodial staff hires were on, but one had scheduling duties with no pay difference. Then the shit hit the fan. We found out that Scott had a criminal record that went back years ago. There was a huge hoohaw over getting him hired into the LC position, with another background check. His supervisor Billy insisted that we hire him though. Again, over the nearly three month gap before he was hired as staff, he was paid through the Stage Services contract (which doesn't really have custodial authority).
I just can't wait to go into work to face what's going on in today's staff dramas. We have the Wilson Phillips concert tonight and Mark Twain Tonight! with Hal Holbrook tomorrow night and potentially a patched together custodial crew if Scott has been terminated or put on suspension outside of our control.
Oh, and now our custodial costs all told are over $120,000 a year.
It's a doomed situation.
For years, the theatre tagged off the Physical Plant pool of custodians, in which we were charged a flat rate per year, which included all the supplies for the theatre. Back then it was only about $65,000 a year. The custodians (who I never ever met) worked nights, cleaning up after theatre events, occasionally giving the offices a trash emptying, that kind of thing. Decisions were made that since we weren't able to schedule these employees ourselves, we really needed to have our own custodial staff. I was skeptical, as the numbers guy.
That's where the trouble started. This must have been about 2007 when we made the switch.
Every staff custodian we've hired has been an utter failure, with lots of drama involved. We've been through five full time so far, each with a rasher of bizarreness (is that a word?) culminating in their eventually having to leave. None have been fired, but should have. Of course, the pay is abysmally low. $10 per hour plus (theoretical) university benefits. But why can't we hire someone stable?
We add student custodians in the mix, but in general, those have all been quiet hires and not much happens in that group of people.
This past year, we created a Lead Custodian position, paying a couple dollars more per hour, and having supervisor skill sets needed.
Yesterday, I got a call from our admin assistant after I left work, a voice mail actually. Rachel wanted to fill me in on a situation that occurred there yesterday afternoon. I didn't catch the call until about 5:30, but she told me what was up. It wasn't what I thought (there was a developing issue that morning between our operations manager and the assistant tech person I figured has blown up again).
About 4:30, 4 UNM police showed up and asked for Scott Palmer, our lead custodian. The escorted him (with or without handcuffs, I don't know), down to our development officer's work area and grilled him about an issue. From what I understand, he was taking some class or other and a handwriting analysis was involved. His writing sample has some incendiary language in it, referencing his military background from long ago. Whatever it was, freaked his professor out and she filed a complaint.
After that, he was escorted out of the building by two of the UNM police and the others held back to give a small briefing to Rachel. Scott's supervisor, Billy, was called.
So we don't know if we have a lead custodian right now. The 3/4 time custodian we had for two months quit on Feb 7. Two of the student custodians that were hired never even started working; they found other jobs somewhere else. It's a mess.
Scott's hire history with us has been a mess in itself, although he's been a reliable, hard-worker for over two years. Originally, he was hired in as a student. When he dropped a class, putting him below 6 credit hours, we had to scramble and found out he could be hired as a UNM Temp. He was paid that way for 6 months, but you can only temp 6 months before other arrangements have to happen. We rehired him as a student, since he had enough credit hours that semester (the guys is in his 50s, btw), but after two months, student employment suddenly terminated him--when I was on vacation, my sub entered 32.1 hours for one week in his pay time entry, putting him over the maximum a student can work. There was no recourse. We scrambled again and after a time got him back on as a Temp, although there were TWO months where we had to pay him through our Stage Labor contract as an independent contractor. THAT could have been weird.
After that last Temp position was ending, we decided to create the Lead Custodian position to fix the inequity situation that was created when two equal custodial staff hires were on, but one had scheduling duties with no pay difference. Then the shit hit the fan. We found out that Scott had a criminal record that went back years ago. There was a huge hoohaw over getting him hired into the LC position, with another background check. His supervisor Billy insisted that we hire him though. Again, over the nearly three month gap before he was hired as staff, he was paid through the Stage Services contract (which doesn't really have custodial authority).
I just can't wait to go into work to face what's going on in today's staff dramas. We have the Wilson Phillips concert tonight and Mark Twain Tonight! with Hal Holbrook tomorrow night and potentially a patched together custodial crew if Scott has been terminated or put on suspension outside of our control.
Oh, and now our custodial costs all told are over $120,000 a year.
