oh, the drama!
Oct. 4th, 2007 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanFirst of all, an update on the bed situation. Mom did bring over the new bed for Ruthie, and we dismantled the crib and when I saw how much bother it was going to be to take the crib pieces down to the basement, I gave up that idea and just posted the dang thing on freecycle. So last night a couple came by with their SUV and took the crib away. I hope I did an adequate job of explaining how to put it back together. They seemed to get it. Anyway, they have pictures (I posted a couple of pix on my freecycle listing) which hopefully will guide them.
Ruthie hasn't slept in the new bed yet though. On Tuesday night I thought it would be too much disruption for her since she was already upset over all the commotion with the crib disassembly and bringing in the new bed and then Isaac going off with grandma. Last night I was determined to put her down in the new bed, but, uh, I didn't. Well, I tried once and she woke up and cried and then I lost my nerve. sigh. So she once again spent the night in my bed, latched on to the boob for the entire 8 hours or whatever it was.
This sentence shall serve as a placeholder for more blather re Ruthie and the sleep situation and my reluctance, or inability, to do much about it, primarily because I'm conflicted in my feelings about it and also because by the time it gets to bedtime and I'm already worn out, I end up taking the path of least resistance even though I know I shouldn't. Wow, some placeholder eh?
But anyway the real thing I wanted to post about was the recent daycare drama that has been going on.
It all started, actually, a couple of weeks ago when there was a note in all parents' cubbies saying that the daycare center director, Dana, had gone to "pursue other opportunities" effective immediately. And I mean immediately, like, I never saw hide or hair of her again. No goodbyes, no transition period, nothin'. So that was a bit mysterious, but I haven't gotten up the nerve yet to ask Ruthie's teachers whether they know any dirt.
So then there ensued a couple of weeks during which a series of women, presumably from the head office (the daycare is part of a national chain), were in and out taking care of administrative stuff. Then on Monday, there was a big sign in the lobby saying that parents were invited to a "meet-and-greet" on Wednesday (yesterday) with the new director, Missy something-or-other.
Then on Tuesday, I arrived to pick Ruthie up and her teacher had a stack of envelopes with parents' names on it, and she was going through it as the parents arrived, like "here's one for you, one for you, nope I don't have one for you" and she gave me one. Intriguing. Not everybody got one, so what could it be?
Well, it was a letter from the head office informing me that a "review of records" had indicated that my account was overdue by $X (equal to one week's tuition) and that tuition is due by 6:00 p.m. every Thursday without exception (this part was bolded in the letter) and that I would be expected to pay a service charge of $5 per day. And -- this was the part that got me going -- if the payment was not received by 6pm on Wednesday (the day after I was reading this letter), then they would "no longer be able to provide [their] services to [me]" as of Friday. OMGWTF!
I mean, less than one week's notice?? I miss ONE week's payment (or they think I missed it) and suddenly they're going to kick me out by Friday?? Maybe that's typical policy, but I've never encountered that before. At all the previous daycares we've used, I've occasionally been a day or two late with my payment and nothing was ever said. (Not even at the one that was part of the same chain that this place is part of!) The assumption always was that as long as I paid up promptly in general, the occasional day or two of lateness was no big deal. I certainly presume that if I were the chronically late type, or if a particular payment were late by more than a few days, they might have said something; but that never happened.
Anyway, I did think it was just barely possible that I had spaced out on one week's payment, but I checked my checkbook and this was not the case. I have paid faithfully every Thursday, and as of the time I checked it on Tuesday evening, all but the last check had cleared.
So the next morning (Wednesday/yesterday) I stopped in to the office and talked to the woman who was there that day. As I said above, there had been a stream of different women in and out, so it didn't occur to me to ask this woman whether she was the new director, Missy -- but later it turned out that she was. When I was talking to her I didn't know this though, so I approached her as if she were any random administrative person, who was not at fault necessarily, but whose job at the moment was to handle these things. I basically said that a) my account was NOT overdue and b) I took offense at the tone of the letter. To the latter she replied that the wording of the letter was not her responsibility (which I certainly believe; I'm sure it's a boilerplate that the corporate offices provide) and that indeed it is corporate policy to kick you out that quickly. To the former, she said that they had been hearing a lot of this and were not sure whether Dana (the ex-director) had made a deposit and not noted it, or filed some checks wrong, or who knows what; but they were looking into it. She took down the check numbers for all the checks I had written and noted which was the one that hadn't cleared yet. (Then I went to the office and checked my online banking and found that that one HAD cleared.)
So later yesterday evening I went to the "meet-and-greet" (briefly) and found out that the aforementioned woman was Missy, the new director. And I told her about the last check clearing and she said they were still looking into it. Later still, around 6:45 when I was at home with the kids, I got a call from the woman at the daycare named Joan, who is the coordinator (or some such title) of the infant and toddler programs. She said that they had determined that some payments had been deposited into the wrong account (whatever that means) and it was all straightened out and my account was not overdue, no worries.
What I wish I had said, both to her and to Missy -- and what I may yet try to say to them, and to write in a letter to the head office -- is this: It's not about the money per se. I had every confidence that the money thing itself would be straightened out, because I can prove that I wrote those checks and they were cashed. So I wasn't worried about that. No, what it's really about is the idiocy of the way you went about this.
Listen, when you fire a top-management person (note I don't know for a fact that she was fired, but I'm guessing) and you start looking at her records and discover that large numbers of customers appear to be overdue on their payments (I say "large numbers" because it was clear that the toddler-room teachers were handing out envelopes to many of the parents), the obvious conclusion is that the person you just fired had poor organizational skills. Perhaps you knew that and that's why, or part of why, you fired her. But by logical extension, there are two possible explanations: One, that all those people really did not pay their bills and were getting away with it because Dana was too disorganized to go after them; or two, that they really DID pay and Dana was too disorganized to keep proper records of said payments. From my perspective, it seems, both of those explanations are equally likely. The latter has a bit of an edge in terms of likelihood, because presumably the head office does keep records and would notice if this center were bringing in significantly lower amounts of cash than its enrollment numbers indicated.
Still, let's presume that each of the two explanations has a 50-50 chance of being the correct one. You now have a choice of how to handle this. You could proceed from the assumption that scenario two is the correct one, giving your customers the benefit of the doubt, and send out a friendly letter saying "We're reviewing our records and want to make sure your account is up-to-date, so could you please come in and talk to us as soon as possible?" This way you can very quickly separate the good customers (the ones who will come in right away and show proof that they're paid up) from the deadbeats (the ones who come in and make excuses, or don't come at all), and you've done it in a friendly fashion, giving each customer the benefit of the doubt, not alienating anyone who is in good standing, not tarring anyone with the deadbeat brush until you have reason to believe they deserve it.
OR, you can assume that scenario one is the correct one -- that you have a center full of deadbeats -- and thus send them all threatening letters ordering them to pay up, with interest. This way you get everyone's attention...but in a very negative way. You're going to piss off a lot of good customers -- the ones who are fully paid up -- and as for the deadbeats, if there even are any, the distinction between the friendly letter and the threatening letter probably won't make much difference to them anyway. It's going to become pretty clear soon enough who the deadbeats are -- assuming that your new director is better organized -- so why not let them show themselves in due time?
Doesn't it seem like, when you're in the midst of a management transition, you should want to do everything within your power to reassure your customers that the transition is going to be smooth; to ensure their loyalty; to show your goodwill toward them? Aren't you already worried that the change in leadership is going to prompt some customers to jump ship? So why on EARTH would you shoot yourselves in the foot by sending out a letter that's going to further damage your public relations? Why risk alienating your entire customer base for no good reason?
Sure, the letter was undoubtedly a boilerplate, as I said, and Missy the new director undoubtedly had little or nothing to do with it. But like it or not, it's her problem now. I strongly feel that the head office should provide TWO boilerplates, for directors to use at their discretion: the mean threatening one, like the one I got, and another one with a gentler tone that would be more like "We're just trying to make sure our records are up to date and there appear to be some discrepancies, so please come and talk to us." One boilerplate for known (or strongly suspected) deadbeats, and one for situations when you're really not sure. Surely that wouldn't be too complicated to set up, and would give your directors a little more discretion to act based on their knowledge of the particular people involved...and would avoid needlessly pissing people the hell off. IDIOTS. ahem.
Okay, that got a bit long, but well...it occupied 90% of my brainpower the past couple of days because it was pissing me off so much. :P I'm calmer now, but still irritated. Mainly I'm just hoping this is not going to be a sign of things to come as far as what life is going to be like at the daycare now. sigh.
On the plus side, Ruthie is still doing great at daycare and today they posted a bunch of adorable pix that they took of the various toddlers doing various toddler-type activities. There were a couple cute shots of Ruthie eating snacks, playing, and listening to stories.
So anyway, that's what I've been up to the last couple days ;) Also I am now reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is extremely engaging and incredibly moving, thus far (almost halfway through). I have no clue where it's going to go....
Ruthie hasn't slept in the new bed yet though. On Tuesday night I thought it would be too much disruption for her since she was already upset over all the commotion with the crib disassembly and bringing in the new bed and then Isaac going off with grandma. Last night I was determined to put her down in the new bed, but, uh, I didn't. Well, I tried once and she woke up and cried and then I lost my nerve. sigh. So she once again spent the night in my bed, latched on to the boob for the entire 8 hours or whatever it was.
This sentence shall serve as a placeholder for more blather re Ruthie and the sleep situation and my reluctance, or inability, to do much about it, primarily because I'm conflicted in my feelings about it and also because by the time it gets to bedtime and I'm already worn out, I end up taking the path of least resistance even though I know I shouldn't. Wow, some placeholder eh?
But anyway the real thing I wanted to post about was the recent daycare drama that has been going on.
It all started, actually, a couple of weeks ago when there was a note in all parents' cubbies saying that the daycare center director, Dana, had gone to "pursue other opportunities" effective immediately. And I mean immediately, like, I never saw hide or hair of her again. No goodbyes, no transition period, nothin'. So that was a bit mysterious, but I haven't gotten up the nerve yet to ask Ruthie's teachers whether they know any dirt.
So then there ensued a couple of weeks during which a series of women, presumably from the head office (the daycare is part of a national chain), were in and out taking care of administrative stuff. Then on Monday, there was a big sign in the lobby saying that parents were invited to a "meet-and-greet" on Wednesday (yesterday) with the new director, Missy something-or-other.
Then on Tuesday, I arrived to pick Ruthie up and her teacher had a stack of envelopes with parents' names on it, and she was going through it as the parents arrived, like "here's one for you, one for you, nope I don't have one for you" and she gave me one. Intriguing. Not everybody got one, so what could it be?
Well, it was a letter from the head office informing me that a "review of records" had indicated that my account was overdue by $X (equal to one week's tuition) and that tuition is due by 6:00 p.m. every Thursday without exception (this part was bolded in the letter) and that I would be expected to pay a service charge of $5 per day. And -- this was the part that got me going -- if the payment was not received by 6pm on Wednesday (the day after I was reading this letter), then they would "no longer be able to provide [their] services to [me]" as of Friday. OMGWTF!
I mean, less than one week's notice?? I miss ONE week's payment (or they think I missed it) and suddenly they're going to kick me out by Friday?? Maybe that's typical policy, but I've never encountered that before. At all the previous daycares we've used, I've occasionally been a day or two late with my payment and nothing was ever said. (Not even at the one that was part of the same chain that this place is part of!) The assumption always was that as long as I paid up promptly in general, the occasional day or two of lateness was no big deal. I certainly presume that if I were the chronically late type, or if a particular payment were late by more than a few days, they might have said something; but that never happened.
Anyway, I did think it was just barely possible that I had spaced out on one week's payment, but I checked my checkbook and this was not the case. I have paid faithfully every Thursday, and as of the time I checked it on Tuesday evening, all but the last check had cleared.
So the next morning (Wednesday/yesterday) I stopped in to the office and talked to the woman who was there that day. As I said above, there had been a stream of different women in and out, so it didn't occur to me to ask this woman whether she was the new director, Missy -- but later it turned out that she was. When I was talking to her I didn't know this though, so I approached her as if she were any random administrative person, who was not at fault necessarily, but whose job at the moment was to handle these things. I basically said that a) my account was NOT overdue and b) I took offense at the tone of the letter. To the latter she replied that the wording of the letter was not her responsibility (which I certainly believe; I'm sure it's a boilerplate that the corporate offices provide) and that indeed it is corporate policy to kick you out that quickly. To the former, she said that they had been hearing a lot of this and were not sure whether Dana (the ex-director) had made a deposit and not noted it, or filed some checks wrong, or who knows what; but they were looking into it. She took down the check numbers for all the checks I had written and noted which was the one that hadn't cleared yet. (Then I went to the office and checked my online banking and found that that one HAD cleared.)
So later yesterday evening I went to the "meet-and-greet" (briefly) and found out that the aforementioned woman was Missy, the new director. And I told her about the last check clearing and she said they were still looking into it. Later still, around 6:45 when I was at home with the kids, I got a call from the woman at the daycare named Joan, who is the coordinator (or some such title) of the infant and toddler programs. She said that they had determined that some payments had been deposited into the wrong account (whatever that means) and it was all straightened out and my account was not overdue, no worries.
What I wish I had said, both to her and to Missy -- and what I may yet try to say to them, and to write in a letter to the head office -- is this: It's not about the money per se. I had every confidence that the money thing itself would be straightened out, because I can prove that I wrote those checks and they were cashed. So I wasn't worried about that. No, what it's really about is the idiocy of the way you went about this.
Listen, when you fire a top-management person (note I don't know for a fact that she was fired, but I'm guessing) and you start looking at her records and discover that large numbers of customers appear to be overdue on their payments (I say "large numbers" because it was clear that the toddler-room teachers were handing out envelopes to many of the parents), the obvious conclusion is that the person you just fired had poor organizational skills. Perhaps you knew that and that's why, or part of why, you fired her. But by logical extension, there are two possible explanations: One, that all those people really did not pay their bills and were getting away with it because Dana was too disorganized to go after them; or two, that they really DID pay and Dana was too disorganized to keep proper records of said payments. From my perspective, it seems, both of those explanations are equally likely. The latter has a bit of an edge in terms of likelihood, because presumably the head office does keep records and would notice if this center were bringing in significantly lower amounts of cash than its enrollment numbers indicated.
Still, let's presume that each of the two explanations has a 50-50 chance of being the correct one. You now have a choice of how to handle this. You could proceed from the assumption that scenario two is the correct one, giving your customers the benefit of the doubt, and send out a friendly letter saying "We're reviewing our records and want to make sure your account is up-to-date, so could you please come in and talk to us as soon as possible?" This way you can very quickly separate the good customers (the ones who will come in right away and show proof that they're paid up) from the deadbeats (the ones who come in and make excuses, or don't come at all), and you've done it in a friendly fashion, giving each customer the benefit of the doubt, not alienating anyone who is in good standing, not tarring anyone with the deadbeat brush until you have reason to believe they deserve it.
OR, you can assume that scenario one is the correct one -- that you have a center full of deadbeats -- and thus send them all threatening letters ordering them to pay up, with interest. This way you get everyone's attention...but in a very negative way. You're going to piss off a lot of good customers -- the ones who are fully paid up -- and as for the deadbeats, if there even are any, the distinction between the friendly letter and the threatening letter probably won't make much difference to them anyway. It's going to become pretty clear soon enough who the deadbeats are -- assuming that your new director is better organized -- so why not let them show themselves in due time?
Doesn't it seem like, when you're in the midst of a management transition, you should want to do everything within your power to reassure your customers that the transition is going to be smooth; to ensure their loyalty; to show your goodwill toward them? Aren't you already worried that the change in leadership is going to prompt some customers to jump ship? So why on EARTH would you shoot yourselves in the foot by sending out a letter that's going to further damage your public relations? Why risk alienating your entire customer base for no good reason?
Sure, the letter was undoubtedly a boilerplate, as I said, and Missy the new director undoubtedly had little or nothing to do with it. But like it or not, it's her problem now. I strongly feel that the head office should provide TWO boilerplates, for directors to use at their discretion: the mean threatening one, like the one I got, and another one with a gentler tone that would be more like "We're just trying to make sure our records are up to date and there appear to be some discrepancies, so please come and talk to us." One boilerplate for known (or strongly suspected) deadbeats, and one for situations when you're really not sure. Surely that wouldn't be too complicated to set up, and would give your directors a little more discretion to act based on their knowledge of the particular people involved...and would avoid needlessly pissing people the hell off. IDIOTS. ahem.
Okay, that got a bit long, but well...it occupied 90% of my brainpower the past couple of days because it was pissing me off so much. :P I'm calmer now, but still irritated. Mainly I'm just hoping this is not going to be a sign of things to come as far as what life is going to be like at the daycare now. sigh.
On the plus side, Ruthie is still doing great at daycare and today they posted a bunch of adorable pix that they took of the various toddlers doing various toddler-type activities. There were a couple cute shots of Ruthie eating snacks, playing, and listening to stories.
So anyway, that's what I've been up to the last couple days ;) Also I am now reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is extremely engaging and incredibly moving, thus far (almost halfway through). I have no clue where it's going to go....
