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December 09, 2005

Not Too Impressive

While running errands, I was driving on a four lane busy street through a residential area. I passed a house where an elderly gentleman was stringing Christmas lights on his home. The ladder looked a bit old. I saw that one arm was up high, reaching for the lights. As I passed, I thought the other arm was clutching his chest.

I got over to the far left lane, waited in the left turn lane for traffic to subside, made a U-turn, and traveled back to this gentleman’s house. I was concerned for his safety.

It was a mannequin.

So kudos for the occupants of the house for coming up with a realistic looking scenario. But shame on them for being too Halloweeny for the Christmas holiday. If it was meant to be a joke, I don’t think it was funny.

I was confused a second time today, just a few minutes later:

I received a voicemail from someone claiming to be the Cat’s caseworker from that government-sponsored center, saying that she is about to go on holiday and would like to make an appointment for January. Huh. I thought we had made an appointment for next week!

I compared the number she left today with the one left last week. They were different. But the voice sounded familiar.

I called the number she left today, leaving a message that I was confused that she was calling me for an initial discussion when I was under the impression that our meeting was already scheduled.

Then I called the “original” number and heard a voicemail saying that person was on medical leave. (Amazing, since according to our assignment letter, this person was brand new, but perhaps it was an unexpected medical leave.)

Perhaps I had made an appointment with someone who is now on medical leave. Or, I made an appointment with the new person while the new person was at the desk of the old person (this would make sense if she was going through the assignments of the person on medical leave.)

If the former, I would think the new person would say “your old caseworker is now on medical leave, so I would like to reschedule the appointment.”

If the latter, I am concerned that the new person is not well organized. Calling me again “for the first time” is not impressive. It makes me wonder if the appointment we made was ever written in her calendar.

Either way, there is confusion. Someone dropped the ball. I hope that I receive a call back shortly.

Furthermore, while I was looking at my “assignment letter” that tells us the name and phone of our caseworker, I noticed that it was “signed” by someone typing in a handwriting font. This is not objectionable, particularly if the person has a disability that prevents her from signing her name (or there are so many letters to be signed that it isn’t practical.) But what was a bit off-putting was that she had misspelled her own name. The “signed” name and the typed name with title don’t match. There are four extra characters at the end of her name, “/ gl.” If this letter is being reproduced multiple times (and it is, based on the observation that my son’s name was simply stuck on with a sticker,) it should have been proofread much closer.

This is not the first time we have received a letter from this center that has included typos. Perhaps they are just very overworked, but I don’t think that is an excuse for sloppiness.

It reminds me of a letter I received from Yale after I asked them for application materials. The letter was poorly written and included several typos. I didn’t bother to apply!

I am such a snob.

Incidentally, I do not claim to write free of typos or grammatical errors. In fact, I made an embarrassing error awhile back when I wrote “shit” instead of “shirt” when discussing Mrs. Kennedy’s lovely Fussy shirt. But I have repeatedly seen evidence of sloppy work from this center, so that doesn’t give me great confidence in its ability to help the Cat. Still, I know that the administrative staff is different than the professionals who ultimately would be coaching the Cat, or at least I would hope that would be true!

UPDATE: The answer to my caseworker confusion is that the woman with whom I scheduled an appointment did go on medical leave. The center did not inform me of this. The new caseworker apologized for the confusion and we have set up an appointment for next month. The result is more delays in a world where everyone keeps saying, "GET HELP EARLY!!!!" and then are stunned when I explain I've been attempting to get the help since 2003.

UPDATE #2: Just received an assignment letter in the mail re-assigning us to this new gal. Irony of timing! Then, I must hang my head in shame, for apparently the "/ gl" at the end of the signature is intentional. It was on this assignment letter, and then I saw a second “gl” at the bottom of the letter. So I guess it is a code of some sort. (Just watch, someone will tell me in the comments that it is a commonly used code like “cc!”) I was mistaken and admit my error.

Posted by karianna at December 9, 2005 01:28 PM

Comments

Posted by: Julie at December 9, 2005 06:11 PM