The Mind Creative
Someone sitting behind a massive desk in one of the glass and
steel edifices on Bay Street, over coffee, mused: Now, what can
I do to screw up some of the employees in the system? How about
outlawing any form of moonlighting? And he wrote it down as
company policy, got Board approval and sent it to the underlings
to implement it.
I suspect all institutions have canons of behavior for the staff,
though I must say that I had not come across any document until
I arrived in Canada. Of course, the school in which I taught in
Kampala had a set of “School Rules” for students—a couple of
pages long. They were displayed on the bulletin boards in the
classroom. I don’t remember any of the rules except the very last
one which said, “A breach of common sense is a breach of School
Rules”.
I liked that.
Anyway, when I arrived in Boyle,
Alberta and was asked to be the
Principal of a High school, the
Superintendent asked me to
familiarize myself with the “Policy
Handbook”
as
quickly
as
possible. This happened to be a
three ring binder filled with the
do’s and don’ts that controlled
the destiny of teachers and
students alike.
Later when I was the Chairman
of Fine Arts at Grande Prairie
Regional
College,
I
was
confronted with a similar tome,
but thicker.
Thus it was that when I tried to
implement a policy (Article
1.2.14.4)
an
irate
faculty
member walked into my office
the next day and slapped on my
desk a copy of the document as
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