My favorite entity is of course administrators. But every once in a while administration tries to work with the grunts in the work force. The following really happened; names were changed and details redacted to ensure my future employment.
Admin: You’ve not documented the frequency for performing this compliance task.
Grunt: it is done when needed.
Admin: we require documentation that it be done very two weeks.
Grunt: I’m familiar with the policies and checked the last time you were here and there is no policy stating every two weeks. Until you show me in writing the policy I’ll do it my way.
Admin: We’ve been requesting two weeks for years.
Grunt: I do it when needed and will do that until a policy is put in front of me.
A fellow admin gets involved.
Actually here is the federal policy that states it must be done every week. According to my records you were advised previously to change it to every two weeks, which you acknowledge refusing to do. Now we need you to file a compliance and incident report for not following federal guidelines.
Silence.
The problem with this story, other than its truth, is that there are local, state and federal policies, rules and guidelines and they often do not match. Further it is really hard to follow all of them and keep up with all of them.
I have to battle admin like the grunt above and am prone to wanting to see policy chapter and verse, but changing policy sources, which happened above is a constant risk because some obtuse policies are out there.