It is official. Our office is down to (4) Investigators due to the personality conflict with Field Marshall and our probationary investigator. He was let go on May 1st without any warning or explanation. Per policy there was no explanation given other than "Trust management's decision to let him go."
So now we here from Riverside that Field Marshall asked our Chief for his permission to let probie go and was denied. So being the Field Marshall that he is, he took his case to the Dept Head and got the approval he sought. The release letter was signed by the Dept Head in a generic and heartless fashion.
We came back to work the following Monday and was informed of Field Marshall's latest victory. So despite having an investigator here who was taking care of his tasks, we now lose him due to our Field Marshall's inability to be professional enough to put personal feelings aside. It is apparent now that Field Marshall would rather dessimate our office and place the burden of all the work squarely on the shoulders of (4) people as he continues to assign cases as quickly as he can. I forgot that he doesn;t have to deal with any of the investigation requests himself other than to pass the assignments out to keep his desk clear.
In our last unit meeting, Field Marshall actually tried to tell us that he has it on good authority that we will be getting (3) new investigators. One investigator openly called his statement into question. I personally feel that our Chief is not going to send us anybody as a punishment for our Field Marshall going over his head with probie's "release".
Things haved gotten so tenuous at our unit that we no longer are able to man our Duty Investigator's office at South West. We no longer have any semblance of any kind of specialized units anymore. All four of us are now general investigators trying to manage 40-70 cases ranging from low-level Misdemeanors to homicide investigations. When we clear a case we are rewarded with a pile of more cases. Field Marshall only takes time away from studying for his Juris Doctorate course work long enough to assign cases or create some kind of problem with the supervising attorneys and our (4) strong investigation bureau.
One thing is blatantly obvious and that is Upper Mgt does not place much value on investigators. We anxiously await what will happen next !!!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Public Defender's Office- Dirty Little Secrets
You know the Pub Def's Office gets a bad rap when it comes to the quality of representation given to the indigent. Okay let me re-phrase that... Riverside County Tax Payer's should know that the Riverside County Public Defender's Office does not only assist folks who cannot afford an attorney, but our office will represent almost anyone despite how much money they make. In fact, there are several examples looming where our Office represented Tribal Members who make in excess of $80,000 per month. But somehow they qualified for the Pub Def's representation.
There seems to be nobody watching the gate and it is swung wide open for Hear Ye-Hear Ye, come one, come all... Bring me your poor, bring your suffering, bring me anybody who can ask for a free atty at the expense of the tax payer.
The other dirty little secret is that the organization is really built on a house of cards. Top - down... From the Dept Head who desires nothing more deeply than to be a Judge, the APD's who want to be the next PubDef and a Chief Investigator who refuses to deal with problems in his investigation's unit by simply ignoring all the classic signs of a huge morale problem. The representation one gets is top notch as the APD's a fully committed to giving the best representation their sometimes +100 client case load will allow. Even the newer attys seem to get it right more than they get it wrong when it comes to providing a vigorous defense to some of the most obvious dud of a case.
So the problem does not rest with the corp of attys trying to cut their teeth and get trial experience at the expense of the client (ie: taking cases to trial just for the experience, thus exposing clients to stiffer sentences does not appear to be an issue). However, I must call into question as to the quality some of the investigator's work product. There are more times then not, we are not allowed to follow up on developed leads, as Napoleon wants a couple of paragraphs at the most of work product, even in some of the most complicated cases. Having read several of our galiant leader's reports, I am left calling into serious question his investigative ability especially the quality of written product. Don't get me wrong I am all about supporting my supervisor and respecting the position. However, this is a classic example of the "Peter Principal" when it comes to Napoleon. He has definately been promoted to the highest level of his incompetency. Now he hides behind his desk and position as he wreaks havoc with "his" personnel making the work environment so hostile people leave and take lesser paying jobs just to get away from him.
At what point will Senior Mgt wake up and remove this destructive person. Ironically, our office runs so much smoother when he is not there. I long for the good old days when Napoleon was running his "Painting by Napoleon" business out of his office. There is actually a business license hanging up in his office.
At one point, he was so self-absorbed with running his business on County time, that he would actually leave us alone to complete our work. We will most likely not see those days again, as several atty's complained after he was hired to paint their homes but ran into problems with his non-English speaking workers making mistake after mistake on each project.
Currently the County is paying for Napoleon to complete his second attempt at Law School. They are giving him County time at work to complete his work, which I thought would be a blessing in disguise at first. We all hoped that his attention would be on his studies and have little time to come up with crazy reports or the implementation of his latest management training session. The latest is when he had each investigator take the MMPI and then not only published the results to all of us, he went to Kinko's and had a large poster made with each of our names and personality types posted for all to see. Then there is the poster that depicted the Traits of a "Productive" and "Non-Productive" Investigator. Makes us all wonder what will there be next ? Personally, I cringe every time he goes off to any kind of management training as he almost always comes back and tried to implement some misguided bastardization of the tools he was exposed to.
Some of us more seasoned investigators just ride it out and let him have his forum, despite how utterly ridiculous it may seem. As long as we are not asked to create another report or stat we are okay with it.
There seems to be nobody watching the gate and it is swung wide open for Hear Ye-Hear Ye, come one, come all... Bring me your poor, bring your suffering, bring me anybody who can ask for a free atty at the expense of the tax payer.
The other dirty little secret is that the organization is really built on a house of cards. Top - down... From the Dept Head who desires nothing more deeply than to be a Judge, the APD's who want to be the next PubDef and a Chief Investigator who refuses to deal with problems in his investigation's unit by simply ignoring all the classic signs of a huge morale problem. The representation one gets is top notch as the APD's a fully committed to giving the best representation their sometimes +100 client case load will allow. Even the newer attys seem to get it right more than they get it wrong when it comes to providing a vigorous defense to some of the most obvious dud of a case.
So the problem does not rest with the corp of attys trying to cut their teeth and get trial experience at the expense of the client (ie: taking cases to trial just for the experience, thus exposing clients to stiffer sentences does not appear to be an issue). However, I must call into question as to the quality some of the investigator's work product. There are more times then not, we are not allowed to follow up on developed leads, as Napoleon wants a couple of paragraphs at the most of work product, even in some of the most complicated cases. Having read several of our galiant leader's reports, I am left calling into serious question his investigative ability especially the quality of written product. Don't get me wrong I am all about supporting my supervisor and respecting the position. However, this is a classic example of the "Peter Principal" when it comes to Napoleon. He has definately been promoted to the highest level of his incompetency. Now he hides behind his desk and position as he wreaks havoc with "his" personnel making the work environment so hostile people leave and take lesser paying jobs just to get away from him.
At what point will Senior Mgt wake up and remove this destructive person. Ironically, our office runs so much smoother when he is not there. I long for the good old days when Napoleon was running his "Painting by Napoleon" business out of his office. There is actually a business license hanging up in his office.
At one point, he was so self-absorbed with running his business on County time, that he would actually leave us alone to complete our work. We will most likely not see those days again, as several atty's complained after he was hired to paint their homes but ran into problems with his non-English speaking workers making mistake after mistake on each project.
Currently the County is paying for Napoleon to complete his second attempt at Law School. They are giving him County time at work to complete his work, which I thought would be a blessing in disguise at first. We all hoped that his attention would be on his studies and have little time to come up with crazy reports or the implementation of his latest management training session. The latest is when he had each investigator take the MMPI and then not only published the results to all of us, he went to Kinko's and had a large poster made with each of our names and personality types posted for all to see. Then there is the poster that depicted the Traits of a "Productive" and "Non-Productive" Investigator. Makes us all wonder what will there be next ? Personally, I cringe every time he goes off to any kind of management training as he almost always comes back and tried to implement some misguided bastardization of the tools he was exposed to.
Some of us more seasoned investigators just ride it out and let him have his forum, despite how utterly ridiculous it may seem. As long as we are not asked to create another report or stat we are okay with it.
Probationary Investigators
Got into the office this morning and discovered that despite only having 5 Investigators to handle our case load, Napoleon ans Mgt Staff decided to let our junior probationary investigator go. No explanation, no words spoken about the loss. However, all of his cases (28) will be assigned by Napoleon to the remaining personnel.
This is crazy to think that Napoleon would let his pettiness over-ride the needs of the unit, even if it was a short-term issue. This would make one more good investigator lost due to Napoleon's backstabbing and lack of real leadership. Ironically, it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if the latest investigator released dosn't file an official grievance against Napoleon.
I personally feel that it speaks volumes to the character of a manager/supervisor when he can't put his personal feelings for someone aside long enough to see what is really best for the unit overall. Again, I'm not sure how letting this investigator go is suppose to help our unit out. Especially in a time when he has been begging Mgt for more manpower.
Wish there was some way to figure all of this out. I can honestly say that the last investigator he targeted never stood a chance in hell of passing probation. Napoleon had him targeted as "prior law enforcement" and despite his excellent investigative techniques and ability to get the hard interviews completed, in the end that mattered not as Napoleon was willing to forsake the unit by any means necessary in order to further his personal agenda to become the next Chief Investigator.
This is crazy to think that Napoleon would let his pettiness over-ride the needs of the unit, even if it was a short-term issue. This would make one more good investigator lost due to Napoleon's backstabbing and lack of real leadership. Ironically, it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if the latest investigator released dosn't file an official grievance against Napoleon.
I personally feel that it speaks volumes to the character of a manager/supervisor when he can't put his personal feelings for someone aside long enough to see what is really best for the unit overall. Again, I'm not sure how letting this investigator go is suppose to help our unit out. Especially in a time when he has been begging Mgt for more manpower.
Wish there was some way to figure all of this out. I can honestly say that the last investigator he targeted never stood a chance in hell of passing probation. Napoleon had him targeted as "prior law enforcement" and despite his excellent investigative techniques and ability to get the hard interviews completed, in the end that mattered not as Napoleon was willing to forsake the unit by any means necessary in order to further his personal agenda to become the next Chief Investigator.
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