Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 26, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 26, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3
I've been looking at this idea for a long time. The final piece of the puzzle for me was the psychological profiling. Without that, I just do not think it can be done, because you would not know who you were dealing with. An individualized program of self-improvement has to be based on how a person is, not how you want them to be.
I'm not sure this project can be done because of Crazy Eddie.
Crazy Eddie was an archetype that Jerry Pornelle came up with in a book called The Moat in God's Eye. In the book, he talks about a character who gets in the way while you're trying to handle a problem. The example he gave was a relief column going to a disaster is stopped by an armed band of men lead by a guy that wants you to pay a toll to him and his group so you can proceed to help people. He doesn't have a solution to the problem. He's just in the way.
Crazy Eddie thinking could crop up anywhere in this project. I mean some idiot might sue because they think that ALL screens for entering the psychological profiles should be set up for disabled people. Or some State of Texas agency would be slighted, so they would sue to stop the project because it hurt their caseload. Or some well meaning person would seek to stop it, because it EXPLOITED the poor by providing them with entry level jobs instead of high paying jobs. Or someone could sue because it was not 100% effective. Or there would be a separation of church and state issue.
There was one other portion of the Hiring Hall Association that I wanted to talk about. It's failure. A master craftsman accepts that failure is always possible, but does not let it get in the way of trying. How can you help someone who will not help themselves? How do you help someone who starts to implement their individualized program of self-improvement and stops making their milestones? What do you do with failure?
The answer is to move the person to maintenance level. Just tell the person that they will get them food, clothing and shelter, but they have to get back on track for the Hiring Hall Association to be of any assistance.
Let me give you example. Suppose someone comes into the project and you get them a job. They get fired for not showing up on time. You work with them to learn how to arrive on time. They refuse. You're stuck. You can't help someone to improve themselves if they won't master the three basic skills of entry level jobs: arrive on time, have a positive attitude, and take direction from a supervisor. YET you can't leave them there to starve. That's stupid. You just say to them, "When you're tired of sitting around, please get with us. We can't help you unless you help yourself." And for some people that's all you can do. Make sure they have a place to live, clothes on their back and food to eat.
Another failure mode for the project is someone who refuses to budge from their entry level job. I mean, you get them the stopgap job and they tell you that they are happy to live at the low level of income generated by that job. What can you do? Simple, you say, "Party on, dude. Catch on the flip side." And get on to people with real needs who want to improve themselves.
There is one more possibility that I thought up. What if the skill set for a given individual is bad for the local economy and the individual does not want to change, why not help them move to a portion of the country where their skill set is needed? Kind of a weird idea, but something to consider. Maintaining a person who cannot work and refuses to improve themselves is costly. Wouldn't it be better to pay for them to go to place where they can get a job and make a living wage? Something to think about.
I looked at this project and it seemed to me that it would be a good thing to do, because we have so MANY people moving into and out of this area. I mean, why not become a magnet for unskilled people wanting to better themselves? What is wrong with that? Why NOT be known as a place where you can get a second chance to succeed in America?
Whether you recognize it or not, the seven county area has over 400 service clubs in it. Each club is trying to help. They communicate with each other, but to date they seem to address the emergency needs of people without addressing the long term needs of individuals. This is not a criticism, because it just seems that way to me. For too long we have tried to deal with poverty as if the poor were a class of people who must be helped instead of individuals needing individualized care.
Of course to get the Hiring Hall Association to work, there must be a volunteer willing to coach the client through their individualized self-help program. The job of case worker is the wrong concept for this position, because case worker IS a job. A volunteer to coach people through their program would have to be willing to be a resource without doing all the work for the client. The volunteer would be a cheerleader as well as a source of information. Someone has to constantly meet with the client and say, "You can do it." Too many times the State of Texas makes the mistake of destroying their clients' selfworth by grinding them down with bureaucracy. The client feels that they will never get into a better situation, because the person trying to help them has such a low opinion of them.
I know, that is a harsh criticism of the State of Texas' attempts to help the poor, but it seems to be an unavoidable condition for most case workers. Because of the feed and forget nature of the present programs, I do not see how a client of the welfare system can feel good about themselves. Each of the State's programs seems to be modeled on the one-size-fits-all concept. How could anyone feel good about themselves in that mode?
But what if you had a coach instead? What if the person assigned to a client by the Hiring Hall Association was an unpaid volunteer? With proper training the coach could seek to maintain a positive attitude in their clients. Their goal would be to provide a hand up, not a hand out. Their reason for being with the client would be to help the client achieve their goals. Logistics is everything. A coach's job would be to eliminate any excuse the client would have for failing to improve themselves. Too many people in rotten situations seek to find excuses for why they have failed. The coach's job would be to remind their clients that they volunteered they volunteered to help themselves and make sure that the lacking resource like transportation was provided.
Using retired successful people as coaches seems to me to be a solution. It came to me also that we could use retired military, particularly sergeants. Too many of our retired NCO wind up without productive work after they retire. The present batch of retiring military has seen duty in Iraq. Why not use the skills they learned over there rebuilding a country to rebuild lives? Surely we could advertise in military journals for help. Many retired military are moving to this area anyway. Why not harness that knowledge to a good cause?
Every coach who has ever existed has had to confront the balancing act of how hard to push as opposed to how hard to pull. If a coach pushes too hard, then the client could collapse under the stress. If the coach provides too much encouragement, then the client could have unreasonable expectations and feel cheated at the end of the process.
You're always going to run up against clients who want to game the system. The Hiring Hall Association would have to accept that a certain number of their clients will lie about wanting to improve themselves. The clients will never show up on time. They will become morose when chided. In short, they will be seeking a handout, not a hand up. The Hiring Hall Association would have to accept clients as they are and move them into the maintenance mode. Clients have to volunteer to improve themselves. If they refuse to volunteer, there is a point when you have to accept the judgement of the client and simply provide them with their basic needs. To do otherwise is to be seen as hard hearted.
The Hiring Hall Association has always got to be based on the client volunteering. If we as a society continue to address the issue of poverty using the feed and forget model ONLY, then poverty will never get any better. On the other hand, some people will NOT volunteer, so the feed and forget model has got to be the last resort, not the first resort.
Come on, help me whitewash this fence. It'll be fun... maybe.
I've been looking at this idea for a long time. The final piece of the puzzle for me was the psychological profiling. Without that, I just do not think it can be done, because you would not know who you were dealing with. An individualized program of self-improvement has to be based on how a person is, not how you want them to be.
I'm not sure this project can be done because of Crazy Eddie.
Crazy Eddie was an archetype that Jerry Pornelle came up with in a book called The Moat in God's Eye. In the book, he talks about a character who gets in the way while you're trying to handle a problem. The example he gave was a relief column going to a disaster is stopped by an armed band of men lead by a guy that wants you to pay a toll to him and his group so you can proceed to help people. He doesn't have a solution to the problem. He's just in the way.
Crazy Eddie thinking could crop up anywhere in this project. I mean some idiot might sue because they think that ALL screens for entering the psychological profiles should be set up for disabled people. Or some State of Texas agency would be slighted, so they would sue to stop the project because it hurt their caseload. Or some well meaning person would seek to stop it, because it EXPLOITED the poor by providing them with entry level jobs instead of high paying jobs. Or someone could sue because it was not 100% effective. Or there would be a separation of church and state issue.
There was one other portion of the Hiring Hall Association that I wanted to talk about. It's failure. A master craftsman accepts that failure is always possible, but does not let it get in the way of trying. How can you help someone who will not help themselves? How do you help someone who starts to implement their individualized program of self-improvement and stops making their milestones? What do you do with failure?
The answer is to move the person to maintenance level. Just tell the person that they will get them food, clothing and shelter, but they have to get back on track for the Hiring Hall Association to be of any assistance.
Let me give you example. Suppose someone comes into the project and you get them a job. They get fired for not showing up on time. You work with them to learn how to arrive on time. They refuse. You're stuck. You can't help someone to improve themselves if they won't master the three basic skills of entry level jobs: arrive on time, have a positive attitude, and take direction from a supervisor. YET you can't leave them there to starve. That's stupid. You just say to them, "When you're tired of sitting around, please get with us. We can't help you unless you help yourself." And for some people that's all you can do. Make sure they have a place to live, clothes on their back and food to eat.
Another failure mode for the project is someone who refuses to budge from their entry level job. I mean, you get them the stopgap job and they tell you that they are happy to live at the low level of income generated by that job. What can you do? Simple, you say, "Party on, dude. Catch on the flip side." And get on to people with real needs who want to improve themselves.
There is one more possibility that I thought up. What if the skill set for a given individual is bad for the local economy and the individual does not want to change, why not help them move to a portion of the country where their skill set is needed? Kind of a weird idea, but something to consider. Maintaining a person who cannot work and refuses to improve themselves is costly. Wouldn't it be better to pay for them to go to place where they can get a job and make a living wage? Something to think about.
I looked at this project and it seemed to me that it would be a good thing to do, because we have so MANY people moving into and out of this area. I mean, why not become a magnet for unskilled people wanting to better themselves? What is wrong with that? Why NOT be known as a place where you can get a second chance to succeed in America?
Whether you recognize it or not, the seven county area has over 400 service clubs in it. Each club is trying to help. They communicate with each other, but to date they seem to address the emergency needs of people without addressing the long term needs of individuals. This is not a criticism, because it just seems that way to me. For too long we have tried to deal with poverty as if the poor were a class of people who must be helped instead of individuals needing individualized care.
Of course to get the Hiring Hall Association to work, there must be a volunteer willing to coach the client through their individualized self-help program. The job of case worker is the wrong concept for this position, because case worker IS a job. A volunteer to coach people through their program would have to be willing to be a resource without doing all the work for the client. The volunteer would be a cheerleader as well as a source of information. Someone has to constantly meet with the client and say, "You can do it." Too many times the State of Texas makes the mistake of destroying their clients' selfworth by grinding them down with bureaucracy. The client feels that they will never get into a better situation, because the person trying to help them has such a low opinion of them.
I know, that is a harsh criticism of the State of Texas' attempts to help the poor, but it seems to be an unavoidable condition for most case workers. Because of the feed and forget nature of the present programs, I do not see how a client of the welfare system can feel good about themselves. Each of the State's programs seems to be modeled on the one-size-fits-all concept. How could anyone feel good about themselves in that mode?
But what if you had a coach instead? What if the person assigned to a client by the Hiring Hall Association was an unpaid volunteer? With proper training the coach could seek to maintain a positive attitude in their clients. Their goal would be to provide a hand up, not a hand out. Their reason for being with the client would be to help the client achieve their goals. Logistics is everything. A coach's job would be to eliminate any excuse the client would have for failing to improve themselves. Too many people in rotten situations seek to find excuses for why they have failed. The coach's job would be to remind their clients that they volunteered they volunteered to help themselves and make sure that the lacking resource like transportation was provided.
Using retired successful people as coaches seems to me to be a solution. It came to me also that we could use retired military, particularly sergeants. Too many of our retired NCO wind up without productive work after they retire. The present batch of retiring military has seen duty in Iraq. Why not use the skills they learned over there rebuilding a country to rebuild lives? Surely we could advertise in military journals for help. Many retired military are moving to this area anyway. Why not harness that knowledge to a good cause?
Every coach who has ever existed has had to confront the balancing act of how hard to push as opposed to how hard to pull. If a coach pushes too hard, then the client could collapse under the stress. If the coach provides too much encouragement, then the client could have unreasonable expectations and feel cheated at the end of the process.
You're always going to run up against clients who want to game the system. The Hiring Hall Association would have to accept that a certain number of their clients will lie about wanting to improve themselves. The clients will never show up on time. They will become morose when chided. In short, they will be seeking a handout, not a hand up. The Hiring Hall Association would have to accept clients as they are and move them into the maintenance mode. Clients have to volunteer to improve themselves. If they refuse to volunteer, there is a point when you have to accept the judgement of the client and simply provide them with their basic needs. To do otherwise is to be seen as hard hearted.
The Hiring Hall Association has always got to be based on the client volunteering. If we as a society continue to address the issue of poverty using the feed and forget model ONLY, then poverty will never get any better. On the other hand, some people will NOT volunteer, so the feed and forget model has got to be the last resort, not the first resort.
Come on, help me whitewash this fence. It'll be fun... maybe.
posted by aRandomTexan at
11:22 AM
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