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 !!!
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And then what happened?
ReplyDeleteI lost my position (probationary) last year with only 1 week to go. I had 5 days, but I had a confrontation with my supervisor. He basically called me in and belittled me with another of his many droning talks about his management philosophy. I had gotten pretty good at letting it go in one ear an out the other, but this one talk had a tone that just broke the camels back.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of years in both investigation and supervision, and I can say that I am baffled how this office continues to keep this particular supervisor around. He has zero management or people skills, and he spends his day studying, or arranging football practices, or doing other things not realted to the job, instead of providing the support we have collectively as an office requested numerous times.
I did get up and leave his office that day and I said that I would not return until I got to speak to the chief....I sent an e-mail and called....I got a letter releasing me from probabtion. No meeting, no consideration for my years of experience, and with no conversation about it at all.
As a result, three more investigators left that office becasue of the bullshit this guy puts people through. It is a period in my career that I would like to forget. I do believe that the public defenders office provides a valuable service, and this one is somewhat progressive in hiring ex-cops, but they really need good ex-cops in there supervising... not administrators from a two deputy town of 300, or those that are butt-hurt becasue they couldn't hack an academy and are looking to take it out on everyone around them with the "Hey look, I am the boss" attitude.
While I respect the investigators that are doing this job in RivCo, I would never reccomend this position to any ex-cop to go do. It is poorly managed, poorly supervised, and poorly run. All this does is hurt the clients of the office...those that really need our services....
I love the blog!...Keep up the good work.