My programmer gave me his letter of resignation today. I'm very sad because he was good at what he does. He has agreed to continue working until the end of the first week March, then he is off to his new job. This is one of the problems with working for the state is that we can not compete for the talent. David likes his job and the environment and would stay if we could compete with the offer. However, that would be a 33% increase in his current salary (and be more than I as his supervisor make)...and we just can't match it. So an outstanding programmer goes back out in the business world. This means an increase cost to the tax payers for me to go through a hiring and training process that will probably leave me with a "B" programmer instead of the "A" programmer that I had.
I'm getting frustrated with management in the state. This is the third thing to happen this week that would not happen in the business world. First, back in November I placed a requisition with a justification letter for a souped-up laptop for me. It took until the beginning of February for the State purchasing Technology Oversight committee to approve it. When I went back to the vendor that had won the bid, they informed that the model had been discontinued with no direct replacement. I have to start the entire process over. That means I probably won't get my laptop for another 3-4 months. We are talking about this kind of bureaucracy for a $2,000 machine...are we really saving money?
Then, in January I requested a tablet PC with a justification letter for a director who travels to our schools two-three times a week. Well, it came back this week REJECTED. Why? Well, the oversight committee doesn't like the inclusion of the wireless access card in the machine (although my laptop that they had approved had an integrated wireless card...I guess they just didn't notice). The State wishes to have a copy of my department's "Wireless Access Policy", prior to approval of the tablet PC. The ludicrous thing is that there is currently in effect a state mandated moratorium on wireless networks for state agencies. I don't have a "Wireless Access Policy" because I am not allowed to have a wireless network. Of course, you can't buy a tablet pc w/out a wireless access card (not that I would...many of our colleges do have wireless access and the director needs the ability to connect to those networks when she visits those campuses and she has a wireless home network that she will need to connect to when she works at home). Anyway, I sent the State Information Officer and email asking for an example "Wireless Access Policy" so that I could make sure I submitted back exactly what they wanted. I haven't heard a thing back. I wrote one myself and am sending it to our lawyers for their review...not that they can understand it. Basically...a waste of my time and theirs.