I am normally a fan of electronic record keeping. Electronic data is space efficient, can be easily copied, and doesn't grow fuzzy things. I'm not so much a fan of the headmaster of my school announcing one day that the following day all teachers must bring their diplomas and certificates and whatnot and have them scanned into a computer for the college's records. I'm annoyed about this for several reasons, one of which being the day that all 100 odd teachers are supposed to do this is a Friday, which is a half day, and I count on that half day to clean my house, do some laundry, read a book and go to bed early. Mine is the exciting night life. Also, had the headmaster bothered to check with the ICT department, he would have discovered that we have exactly one scanner. It's an HP 3500c scanjet, and it does not work with any computer except those running an unservicepackified version of Windows XP. I have spent several frustrating hours of my life trying to get it to work with something newer, and failed. Apparently I am the only one who remembers ever using this thing before, so I get to have a delightful conversation with the department head that goes very much like this:
"But it must work with Ubuntu!"
"Umm, well, it's not going to."
Thrilled as I am that I have gotten many people to convert to the wonderful world of ethical and free software, it doesn't help a lot when no one and nothing has drivers for an old HP scanner.
Your school needs a good quartermaster, one with a good grasp of processing time. Even with new, fast, happy-to-play-nice-with-other-things scanners, scanning 100 odd packets of official papers is going to take a long time.
ReplyDeleteYou must learn to "think outside the box." Your petty concerns show that you are not aligned with school strategy. You need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteAssign each teacher a "pencil" and tell her to "draw" a copy of the diploma. Use your own discretion whether you tell her to do it one pixel at a time.