Wife's Exit Interview Questionnaire

Length of Service:     13 months      

Reason for leaving:   There are so many, it’s hard to narrow down to just a couple. Here are a few. 1. Jean Kreutter, the disabilities services director, disclosed my disability to people without my permission, which after consulting with LDA Minnesota I was advised that that “I would suggest you find out who you can speak to in HR regarding a complaint in which your supervisor is violating your confidentiality and, in a back-handed manner, discriminating based on your disability.” But considering that my concerns were never given credence when I raised them (which I will get to shortly), I figured continuing to raise concerns would be another dead end, so it is better to leave Hennepin Technical College than continue to be discriminated against. I made this clear in a recent letter to my newest supervisor. I’d bet nothing changed. 2. Despite having been promised the opportunity to teach and advance my career while at HTC, it became clear that Lisa Larson would never allow that to happen, she actively discouraged me from pursuing advancement and wrote a ridiculous review of me not meeting expectations in work ethic or teamwork when in fact I have been working overtime for free, I have increased the Writing Center’s visit rate by more than 800 percent and have a 96 percent return visit rate from students – despite this success I was often berated and treated like dirt. Lisa Larson even said “well anyone can do your job.” When I was able to win a free ticket to a $450 educational event in my field, Lisa said I would have to take vacation time to go to it and did not support it. I ended up working longer hours and going to the event on my own time, then bringing that knowledge back to HTC as a free benefit to students. Lisa actually said I should look for conferences that focus on paragraph development and sentence structure, which is not something that exists, and would be like asking a math instructor to go to a workshop on how to add and subtract, it’s counterproductive. 3. On another note, when I raised safety concerns after specific threats from a specific student, Lisa Larson did nothing to help the issue. I filed a report through the code of student conduct in early July, and the matter was still unresolved by the time I left in October. In mid-September, my husband bought me mace to carry with me, and tweeted about it, and this was the FIRST time that campus security had been notified about my safety issue. So to put it in as few words as possible, I am leaving HTC because of discrimination, safety concerns, and I was discouraged from advancing my career in any way.

1.                  What did you like most about working for Hennepin Technical College?     I love working with students. I have been teaching in higher ed for about 10 years and thought I would make a career of it, but HTC has convinced me that I should put my three bachelors and two masters degrees to better use outside of academia. Students were my life, and when the opportunity to teach a class along with running the writing center were taken away from me, I knew it was time to end my career in academia. So in a way, HTC killed any remaining enjoyment I got from being an educator and forced me to start fresh in a new career.  Thanks!

2.                  What did you like least about working for Hennepin Technical College?     Lisa Larson, Jean Kreutter, being told I don’t matter, being told I am worthless                                              

3.                  Did your supervisor explain your job duties and responsibilities? Yes          No x   

Comments       This is a tricky one. When I started, I asked countless times in person and in email to have a list of job responsibilities and duties, but was never provided with one. So I went with what I was told, but that would change depending on the mood of my supervisor. In addition, my supervisor changed three times during the year I was at HTC, so the new supervisor would often contradict the old supervisor’s instructions and promises, and get mad at me for continuing to work under the existing guidelines. Lisa Larson’s catch phrase is “This is the first I heard of it.” She used that no matter what issue was presented to her. This sort of thing happened on a near weekly basis.                                                                     

4.         Did you understand what was expected of you on the job?  Yes            No x                     

Comments       For some reason, I figured it was my job to make the writing center successful. I did that by raising student visits by more than 800 percent the first year. This September, we were up 300 percent over last September. I also had a 96 percent return visit rate from students, so I believe that indicates they found my services helpful. Many even drove down from the Brooklyn Park campus to get help at my center rather than any other service providers. I worked with other service providers on campus, and reached out to teachers. I even sent hand written thank you letters to each teacher who had a student visit the center. Despite all this success, I still got a negative review from Lisa Larson and was constantly told I wasn’t doing anything right. I think that’s just nuts.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

5.            How would you describe your work load and duty assignments?

Fairly assigned  x  Unfairly assigned             

Comments       Another tricky one. I felt the work load was sufficient for the center. I think that changed in the past couple months as the writing center operations were given over to the LRC (a less successful service) so I think the workload as it was shifting was ridiculously easy. As someone with more degrees and experience than many instructors at HTC, I felt unchallenged. I doubt Lisa Larson understood what a wealth of experience and education she had in me, as she often seemed to think I just had a high school education, at least that’s how she talked to me. When they removed all autonomy from me, and it became clear that my success over the past year would be absorbed and attributed to Jean to make her failing LRC look better, I knew it was time to go.                                                                                              

6.         Did you ever suggest changes to your supervisor regarding your work?  Yes x        No      

Comments       Invariably, when I offered my opinion or input on a work issue, I was shot down and told I was wrong. I learned if I wanted anything done, I just had to do it, watch it succeed, and then accept the punishment for being successful.  In fact, the whole decision and organization to move the writing center under the LRC umbrella was made without once consulting a single CLA in the writing or math centers (outside of the brief consultation with the facilitator, but I think my feedback to her held up the forward movement of the consolidation, and led to further shutting the CLAs out of the process)                          

7.            Did your supervisor explain to you why the change could or could not be considered?

Yes      No x   

Comments       I don’t think knee jerk reactions of the sort offered by Lisa Larson come with sufficient explanation. For instance, she said I could no longer lock my door to insure my safety from a specific student threat when I was alone in the center. Her reasoning was that other people on campus work with students in offices by themselves, but this didn’t take into account the specific threat to me. I also work with students every day, and in 10 years had never raised such a concern. Lisa Larson said I needed to work through the Code of Student Conduct on this issue, but again, doing that led to months of no action or movement to keep me safe. Lisa never even notified security about the issue.                                                      

8.            How would you rate the evaluation process at Hennepin Technical College?

Good               Poor     x                      Fair                  Unfair  x         

Comments       My review last month from Lisa was completely ridiculous. I have invited her to come and actually watch me do what I do with students, but she has never once taken me or the previous math CLA up on that offer. Her review was based entirely on her personal interactions with me, which are skewed as she does not listen to any input and assumes the worst of me.  My numbers speak for the success of my methods, yet even 800 percent growth doesn’t merit more than “meets expectations.” I wonder what would exceed them.              

9.            What could we (Human Resources) have done differently to better serve you?

Comments       More leadership training for administration on how to listen and not automatically shoot down ideas, how to treat people with dignity. That’d be a good start.        

10.        What can Hennepin Technical College change to better serve its employees (overall)?

Comments       Listen to them. Treat them like human beings with dignity                          

11.       Would you recommend the college as place to work?  Yes               No      x         

12.       What other comments or suggestions do you have about your work experience here?        

I write all this fully knowing that none of it will mean anything. After a year, I’ve seen all but one other CLA leave under similar circumstances, but nothing was ever done to correct the issues those people raised. Instead, the narrative is created that those people were bad workers and difficult to work with, thereby negating any need to reflect on HTCs role in the process.

Wife and I ROCK the North Shore

The best advice I have if you are planning a trip to the north shore is to bring my wife. It will increase your enjoyment of nature's beauty to the point where you will start to question existence in a my-wifeless universe.

First some pics I couldn't fit elsewhere in this blog: 

Yup, north shore baby.

  

 On the north shore, people fuckin skip rocks. It really is this idyllic. I know!

 The Angry Trout Cafe deserves every bit of praise it ever gets. Oh My God they are good. DO NOT SKIMP HERE. Order what your heart wants and skip a meal later, you will not regret it.

We got there just past color peak season, but it still frakin rocked.

 

For one, wife is a whiz at packing. After all the time she spent living out of a suitcase shuttling between her shit life in Grand Forks and her weekends with me in Fargo, she became very good at it. As Malcolm Gladwell would point out, she put in her 10,000 hours of packing.

Problem is this last week she was off her game. She had an interview scheduled for Thursday night, which after working until 6 p.m. didn't leave any time for packing once we got home. However, she got it done and we got out on Friday by 8 a.m. Wife don't pity no fools when it comes to packing.

For two, you are likely to hear the best combinations of the English language ever spoken when you are traveling with my wife. Here are a few excerpts:

"I just want to see a goddamn tugboat and a goddamn lighthouse in this goddamn town, then I want some pie."

"I need some coffee before I kill an orphan."

Deer in the North Shore just stand there and pose for pictures

Dogs in the North Shore drive, but they are crap at parallel parking

For three, if you've played your cards right, if you've been a good boy for four to five years, doing dishes, laundry, driving, shopping, cooking, you get rewarded. We drove up to the Lutsen ski resort, where the gondolas were still moving up to a distant mountain (Minnesota Mountain). The scene was breathtaking. 

Then wife, who has a deadly fear of heights, says

"I'll do it. I'll go up with you. I owe you for so much, so this makes us even."

And it does. Her fear of heights is like anyone's worst fear. I doubt I would be able to hold live snakes for wife, or scuba dive in an eel tank with waterproof spiders. This was her equivalent. So we took the eight minute gondola ride up, and up, then up some more. Then we got to this chalet thing, Lake Superior off in the distance, trees with most leaves down, but still smatterings of mustard yellow and fire orange smeared on the hillsides. The floor of the balcony at this chalet was a wire mesh that wife didn't realize was 30 feet from solid ground until after we were nearly done and I asked for the camera to do a foot picture.

That’s what wife does for me.

She also knows how to splurge. We're still paying for the weekend festivities, but oh how we ate like kings. Poutine slathered in rainbow juice, Herring that sprang from Lake Superior onto our plates with a final look as if to say, "It is my time, please enjoy me." Smoked trout that stank up my hands for hours after. And the Pie. It was this fruit crumble thing from Betty's Pies outside of Two Harbors, and each bite was like tasting little balls of sunshine that burst forth and still brings tears to my eyes thinking about it five days later.

Last slice of heaven

Then on Sunday, we made our way from Lutsen Resort, Stopped at the Split Rock Light House for a spell, ate awesome burritos at Burrito Union in Duluth, a city I think must be the Portlandia of the Midwest because oh my god the hippies/hipsters/lefties.

We got back on Sunday.

And oh, I forgot to say, the Thursday before we left, my boss emails me and asks if my wife is still looking for a new job. Out of the blue because my boss and everyone I work with is awesomesauce personified and I can't believe it. It's a temp job that may last two weeks to two months, and it gets wife out of the miserable mess that HTC has become and into something that begins to approximate a wage that she is worth. It's not what she plans to do with her life, but it gets her out of the hellhole and into a head space that is healthy and human.

Wife was still not sure about leaving her job, since it's a steady thing and she loves to help students despite all the bullshit that they throw at her every week. Then she got an email from her new, and third, boss in a year that questioned her integrity on her time sheet. So wife let off a stern email, I went to the school the next day to get all her shit, and she emailed the HR people to tell them she was done. Simple, clean. And they haven't talked to her since.

Next blog, her exit interview. It's a thing of beauty.