The Danger of Ignorance When Psychology is Involved

It is a rare day when a blog post riles me up enough to consume my thoughts all day. However, today is one of those days. I am a big fan of the Brazen Careerist Network and enjoy reading the perspectives of other 20-somethings. I enjoy well explained argument and opposing viewpoint. I also enjoy healthy banter about politics, social and workplace issues.

Today, though, one Brazen Careerist writer’s post was appalling. Katie Monaghan wrote a post entitled “How My Psych Major Tells Me Just How Crazy Everyone Else Is At Work.”

You really need to read the post in order to understand why I am so bothered by her statements.

I have an undergraduate and Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on Industrial/Organizational Psychology) and would NEVER use the word “crazy” about someone I felt had a genuine psychological disorder. It’s not funny. It’s not just insensitive- it’s downright offensive.

As an undergrad, I had a phenomenal Abnormal Psychology professor (Dr. David Holmes) who regularly asked his patients to come in and explain what it is like to have their particular disease. The entire 2,000 person auditorium would be silent and respectful as the individual shared their challenges and how difficult/hurtful it is to interact with insensitive others. That experience honestly changed me as a person.

Thanks to Dr. Holmes, I met a schizophrenic who smelled rotting flesh all of the time, and believed blood was running down the faces of every student in the auditorium. As she spoke, she kept her hand on her forehead because she believed that there was a ticker tape running across her forehead sharing all of her innermost thoughts. She even had difficulty concentrating because the monks that constantly follow her were chanting in the background. She was fully aware that none of these things were “real” to others, but they were VERY real to her. Dr. Holmes introduced us to people with bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, etc.

On a personal level, I struggle with both depression and anxiety, as does my father. I have close family and friends that experience Bipolar disorder, ADHD, and OCD. These are real diseases that affect real people. To use the word “crazy” in reference to real psychological disorders is absolutely sickening.

Additionally, Katie berates all of her colleagues calling them crazy and implies that they need straight jackets. Amazingly, she has diagnosed all of her colleagues with only a bachelor’s degree. I wonder if Katie’s coworkers and boss know about her blog. I wonder if her psychology professors are proud that they taught her so much in her undergrad, that she feels qualified to clinically diagnose others. I also wonder how Katie’s coworkers/boss perceive her personality quirks (because we all have them).

Moving away from the issues of real mental disorders, something I noticed in the post is how Katie believes everyone else is “crazy” except for her. What would Carl Jung say about that?

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

or….

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

or…

I have never encountered a difficulty that was not truly the difficulty of myself.

or…

If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.

From what I see in this post is a clear lack of respect and understanding of others. I would suggest to Katie that a better use of her psychology degree would be to use her “people skills” to build bridges of understanding- not create walls of prejudice.

I would ask her to think about whether the things that bother her about others can tell her something about herself. Are the “personality quirks” she perceived in others just different ways of approaching things? Would the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator help lend insight into the motivations and preferences of herself and others? It is always better to look inward first, then outward second.

Katie, on a personal level, I am more than willing to help if you are open to learning more about yourself and others through the MBTI.

Finally, this Carl Jung quote exemplifies how I feel about what I learned from Dr. Holmes:
One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

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Recruiters, Unite!

I was instantly alarmed when I read an article featured on Workforce.com, titled Many U.S. Firms Lack Long-Term Talent Strategy. So I really wasn’t alarmed, I was royally PO’d. This just proves that the shift of going from a reactive recruitment world to a proactive world is just an eight-month-old New Year’s resolution. The article states that most companies have no contingency plan in place and the ones that do, center around layoffs. Companies aren’t thinking of their current precious, and may I remind you, expensive talent (we all know how disgustingly expensive turnover costs can be). Further, they’re not even thinking about how they will recruit moving forward. UGH! Have I not taught you anything?

There is no excuse for organizations to still have a reactive recruiting plan, this day in age. When I was in the agency world, I wanted to slit my wrists every time an HR person or Recruiter said:

“Oh, we’re really not hiring right now”,

then I would politely say, “Well then it’s a great time for us to meet and get you prepared for when you do,”

and they would say, “No thanks but I’ll keep your information on file”.

Yeah, ok lady….don’t come crying to me when you have to hire 30 people in two weeks cuz I’m going to tell you to…well you know…

What I really wanted to say back to her was, “are you slightly retarded? Do you understand that if you aren’t hiring currently then now IS the time to develop your Talent Strategy? No, didn’t think so, that’s why you need me you idiot!”

It never failed, within a month or so, I’d get a call begging for my assistance. Except at that point, even I, as talented as I think I am, couldn’t help this poor soul because IT WAS TOO LATE! Yes, I could help her carry out her boring reactive recruitment initiative, but I wasn’t able to really show my stuff which pissed me off even more. Now because she was operating in reactive mode, I had to as well. This limited our options of media to utilize, lead time on creating a great message and of course my patience. So, unless I worked feverishly around the clock for two weeks inhaling coffee and brushing off sleep, I would fail. I hated clients like these, especially because they would end up spending three times as much to fill the positions than they would have if they had prepared and spent the necessary time creating their “employment brand footprint”. (thanks NAS Recruitment Communciations)

When I would jokingly (really serious though) tell the client, “Wow, you want a miracle here, don’t you” and they would say “well, I just learned of this, they gave me no warning-” and I would stop them and say, “well, if we had prepared all of this stuff beforehand, all we’d have to do is put the wheels in motion, but now you know for next time”. Then they would chuckle, embarrassed because they know I’m right.

It doesn’t matter if you are recruiting now or not. In fact, if you aren’t hiring new people at the current time, hello genius? take the down time to get to know your company’s corporate culture, poll existing employees about why they like working there and yes, you the recruiter should be conducting these audits. You’re a salesperson of sorts, shouldn’t you know your product through and through and not to mention, often? Corporate cultures are constantly evolving, especially as people leave the company and new ones join. With such a culmination of differing personalities working together for the common goal, it is inevitably going to change little by little each day.

Recruiters need to unite and start pressing the powers that be to allow them the budget and go-ahead to dig further into the organization to obtain this information. Recruiters need to unite and demand the powers that be to allow them to utilize different media channels, develop their branding and expand recruitment budgets. Recruiters need to unite and TELL, not ask, the powers that be that you are going to create a Talent Strategy. (If you get canned, I am not responsible, it just means you made a crappy case for yourself.)

If you know your organization, conduct regular employee audits (and please, no rhetorical questions or boring surveys with multiple choice), research the media channels that are available to you and truly devise a plan that will keep you on a proactive recruiting track, one that brands your organization and conveys compelling points about the careers your company provides, you will love your job. You will know that you have made a difference in the organization, saved company funds and maybe even get the Employee of the Month designation complete with a front row parking spot and personalized parking sign.

Now most of you will whine to me, “oh, well they just don’t listen to me.” Well, have you spoken in a way that they will listen? I bet if you tell them that careful planning=cost savings, they will listen. Set up a meeting and only write that on the white board. It’s no secret that there is a huge disconnect between what company execs think needs to happen in recruiting and what actually needs to happen. This is where you come in. You need to tell them. They won’t know unless you plead your case and present evidence.

It is sad that still to this day, HR/Recruiting does not have a seat at the executive table. And if they do, they are most likely on the VP level and have no idea what goes into the daily recruiting efforts. When and if I ever own a company, I will be inviting the people who are my “messengers” to try to bring more people to my company, to sit at my large, mahogany, executive table. (ok, so maybe it’ll be oak until I get enough money to afford a mahogany table). I digress.

If you are going to buy a house, wouldn’t you get pre-approved, figure out financing, select a Realtor, zero in on a general area, pick a type of house and nail down a price range? So…if you’re going to invest in “talent”, a real tangible thing, why wouldn’t you prepare?

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Recruiters, Employment Specialists and Pedophiles

On occasion, I dig deep into the recesses of a Google search to see what kinds of hits my name drums up. A few years ago, during one of those searches, I found the following letter from an angry applicant I had rejected for employment. Here is the letter in full:
~(begin quote)~

I am up here in the politically correct Northwest. I am a certified phlebotomist. I hold an Oregon pharmacy technician license and have 29 years of customer service background as a licensed Master Barber. The past five years I have been trying to get a job as phlebotomist but due to the fact I am not a one-legged transgender black woman who can speak Spanish, I can’t even land even a fu*king interview. I have applied to Salem Hospital, Salem Clinic, Salud Medical Center, various State, County and City jobs. I never even get interviewed!

Remember, almost all applications up here come with a little attached form called a Federal Questionnaire for “diversity” (my favorite fu*king word) to find out if the employer is hiring the “proper” amount of the “right” kind of people, in other words ANYBODY but me or my kind.

By the way, the new and coming thing up here for state, city, county or almost any other big hiring entity is the switch from “preferring bilingual” to the words”require applicant be bilingual”.

It pisses me off that to get a job with my city, my county, my state, my country’s government, I am required to speak the foreign language of a minority population that mainly got here illegally. If you want to come into my country legally and become a part of my country and still retain principles of your home culture, fine, but don’t come into my country illegally and then proceed to tell me to change my language and culture to conform to the ways of the sh*thole country you came from. Nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to come here. If you like your country’s ways, language and customs keep your ass on your side of the border.

When I apply for those jobs, all I get is a form rejection letter. I don’t even get an interview. I have been collecting them all (21 from Salem Hospital alone!, signed, of course, by Andres Acosta and Jeannie Barnes) just to prove to my politically correct (thanks to the school system here) teenage daughter that her daddy is getting fu*ked big time, all the time. Maybe one day after I’m gone, she will realize what this country has gone through.

Bruce Benkle, Salem, Oregon

~(end quote)~

Reverse Discrimination?
Bruce, an anti-immigration activist here in Oregon, wrote this letter to commentator and blogger Marty Nemko; who then used it as an example of reverse discrimination in his article, “The Silenced Majority“.

Where is Bruce these days?
Bruce Benkle was arrested December of last year on multiple counts of sexually abusing minors.

The Morale of the Story
Recruiters and Employment Specialists are frequently accused of being unfair and the butt of cruel jokes. Recruiters have the thankless tasks of conducting the background checks and giving people the bad news when they’re not hired. It’s not an easy job and yet this crucial role is sometimes the last check-point between our children and a vicious predator.

So to all those recruiters and employment specialists everywhere who carefully screen applicants and keep our most vulnerable populations safe from the incompetent and the ill-intentioned … here’s a heartfelt thank you from one of your own.

ADA & HR: Preventing That Bridge with One Ramp

Back in the day, I went to a college that overlooked a pretty major state highway. 4-lanes across, chain linked fence dividing the two sides so you couldn’t cross, major overpass directing traffic over, onto, and off of said highway. Major stuff.

There were reasonably busy side streets running on either side of the highway – one surrounded by shops, the other was the road leading to the college. And linking those to sides of the highway was a pedestrian bridge.

This campus had gone through some major expansion projects during the early 1970’s, right about the time of the passage of the Rehabilitation Act, so I figure this bridge must’ve been built in that era. On the side closest the shops was a fully articulated wheelchair ramp. It dutifully snaked around to give those in wheelchairs safe access to the shops from the bridge.

A most remarkable feature.

HOWEVER, in classic state project fashion, the college side of the ramp ended with on step and a drop right onto the roadway – a drop of 12” or so. Can you imagine? What is the thought process here? Can you imagine the poor soul who carefully made his or her way up the ramp and across the highway to come to the other side and find no possible way of getting off that bridge without falling flat on one’s face into on coming traffic? I simply cannot fathom the decision making process that made this a reality.

In walking around, it’s not hard to see similar examples: cross walk lights designed to trigger not only a “Walk” light, but also an audible tone to announce the walk light is on without any Braille indicating what the button may be. Perhaps the thought was that the people who would be using the cross walks would be local and would therefore know the button is there. More than likely, though, there was no thought put into it at all.

Catching these examples along the way got me thinking about the Americans With Disabilities Act. It was designed to force a more thoughtful approach to those with disabilities and in the end; it has probably done as much for the Human Resources profession as it has done for the disabled. It was, in my opinion, the critical mass toward HR having a seat at the table with decision makers and moving from the old school “personnel” function to that of “human capital” in a way that just hadn’t been forced before.

The primary means by which accommodations are made in the workplace is through job analysis – knowing what the job exists to do, what knowledge, skills and abilities are required to meet the end goal of the job. In other words, it forces a focus on results and less on the how. It forces us to know what our jobs look like and what it takes to do them. It forces an interactive conversation with employees and applicants – a communication process that cannot be overstated in importance; either you communicate with your employees or a union will be more than happy to.

To be sure, this does not always lead to a satisfactory conclusion on an individual basis, but it does have the tendency to create best practices and force thoughtful implementation – unlike a half-baked bridge – will lead to a more productive, and perhaps even innovative, workplace.

Sometimes forced remedies, such as the ADA, will lead to such examples as Braille instruction on a drive up ATM, but if adopted in the workplace – not just complied with – these same processes can be used to more effectively run a workplace. Better yet, most accommodations aren’t overly burdensome and the process, if done properly, really can lead to a more positive workplace. Which has its economic benefits as well.

My bet is that a lot better business decisions are being made now than when it apparently made sense to build bridge with a ramp that goes unused because of lack of access or risk of certain death if used. It benefits everyone if everyone is included in the work place. It benefits everyone if we stop thinking about why someone can’t do something and instead think about how someone CAN do something, which is what the ADA forces employers to do. The ADA has focused our attention on what a job exists to do.

As an HR practitioner, it’s not hard to look at that ramp as an example of how not to accomplish something.

I was by the campus recently and noticed that somewhere along the way a less carefully articulated ramp had now been added to the side which previously had none – doubtlessly due to an ADA audit revealed this non-compliance. As late as 2001, when last worked near campus, that ramp was not there.

The thoughtless, half-conceived efforts to convey compliance with the mandate of inclusion without truly having to be inclusive leads to a remedy that requires such things as Drive Up ATM’s with Braille instructions. Good implementation guided by good HR practice also leads to the realization that most accommodations are not only not-overly burdensome, but are often times good business practice. It’s just sad that it took government intervention to force the issue. How many other problems in the workplace have remedies that we all know should happen and would ultimately lead to better practice, but will wait until we’re forced to comply?

Take Back HR

It occurred to me that 90% of my friends who work in Human Resources are looking for jobs.

• Could it be that all of my friends are nonperforming HR slackers?
• Has Corporate America been too focused on retaining the best & the brightest employees everywhere else except the HR department?
• Is this a case of the grass is always greener at the other company? I’m asking a simple question: are most HR jobs shitty by default?

If we can bring sexy back to HR, can we bring back respectability to our jobs? Can we be proud of our careers? Can we work in an environment free of nonsense and bureaucracy?

I think we can — but we’ll need to start from the beginning.

Are you a Human Resources pro who is looking for a job?

• Why are you looking?
• What sources are a waste of time?
• What kinds of HR jobs will you not accept?

We’re not victims, yo. We need to take back our jobs — like many of us who have marched to take back the night!

Take.

It.

Back.

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The Only Communication Techniques You’ll Ever Need

Whether on the job as a Human Resource Professional or talking with your Significant Other, you can be the best communicator around if you follow these 2 rules:

1. Maintain or Enhance their Self-Esteem. We may not be responsible for how other people feel, but if the other person walks away from our conversation feeling “less than,” we have failed to communicate.  Somtimes we can be condescending in our tone and not realize it.  Rule #2 can give us insight on how to implement Rule #1.

2. Listen with Empathy. They provide whole day seminars on this subject.  Listening takes discipline.  To be able to listen to another person without formulating responses in our head is a challenge for most of us.  Having empathy means that we acknowledge how they feel.

One more time, my advice is simple, but sometimes hard to do.  Awhile back, I made a small card with these 2 rules on it and kept it in my desk drawer.  When someone would enter my office, I would crack the drawer open and look at the card.  I had to wing it at home and this is when I got in the most trouble.

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What not to do when juggling job offers

Inspired by recent events (if you follow my twitter feed you know today has been all kinds of crazy) I would like to offer a case study of what not to do when you are juggling job offers.

1. Do not submit your two weeks notice before you learn the details of the job offer. I call and leave the candidate a message saying I have good news. He calls me back saying he submitted his two weeks notice right before he called me back. What? Already? I haven’t said anything yet. I could be telling him I saved a lot of money on my car insurance for all he knows.

2. Do not accept a job offer without confirming your starting salary. The cart goes behind the horse, behind the horse. This is especially important to remember when you decide that you would like to ask for more than what we are offering. This coupled with number 1 makes your position in the negotiation a little shaky.

3. Do not then take the job offer to your current employer, bargain for more money, and then take their counter offer back to me to also ask for more money. Wow, way to break the trust we have been building right from the start. I’m supposed to want to give you more money, why? What if they counter offer again? When does this stop? What happened to all the reasons you were looking for a new job that had nothing to do with money?

4. When we don’t re-negotiate and you decline our offer, do not expect to still be on good terms with me. I’m sorry, but I hold grudges. I know you need to do what’s best for yourself, but don’t expect me to consider you a good future candidate if your judgment has been this questionable so far. The bridge is burning as we speak.

5. Do not call me a few days later asking if the position is still available because your current employer changed their mind and decided to accept your resignation. All I have to say is dude, that really sucks. That’s a horrible situation to be in. I completely feel for you. But are we willing to reconsider you now, after all this? No, we’re not.

6. Do not keep calling me back out of desperation, even after you get a no. No means No. I really do feel for you, but the decision has been made and, unlike you, we stick to it. Saying that you are desperate for a job, any job, is not making me want to change my mind.

This is a perfect example of how working in HR can really suck sometimes. Nothing about this process went well and nothing good came out of it. I’m going to need some chocolate and a nap now.

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Workplace Trends: Employee Wellness Programs

Over the past decade there has been an increase in organizations that have setup up wellness programs designed at reducing health care costs and raising morale. The increase in such programs has drawn a fair amount of both praise and criticism. Employers struggle with issues such as how to implement the programs, where the funding comes from, and how to judge the cost/benefit of having such a program.

Three traps exposed by HRTechNews:

1. The “one-size-fits-all” approach: For good reason, your organization doesn’t simply copy other firms’ 401(k) plans or compensation designs. Yet, all too often, firms adopt ill-fitting wellness programs based on things that have worked elsewhere.
2. Leaving the program on autopilot: Many wellness programs often get off to a good start and then fizzle out. Employers are left wondering what went wrong. Their mistake: They failed to revisit the program on an ongoing basis – at least every other year.
3. Unrealistic expectations: Generally, it takes at least a year and a half for employers to break even on the cost of a wellness program. As a rule of thumb, the average program cost per employee per month to the employer is about $3 to $5.

The previous traps show common ways that employers setup a system without being truly invested in it. Proper thought and planing must go into a wellness program or it will not meet expectations. It is important to design a program geared to address the concerns of your employees that act as cost-drivers for the company. This article has identified several key places to look when deciding what kind of program would fit your organization.

Key places to look:

• your organization’s medical-claims breakdown for the last three years
• prescription-drug claims
• employee absence information
• EAP use
• disability claims, and
• employee demographics (workers’ ethnic, gender, age and dependent coverage status points to greater – and lesser – health risks associated with each category).

For more resources on employee wellness programs visit the Wellness Council of America. To access an in-depth wellness program guide, activate your HRSentry account today.

How I Used Twitter to Get Meetings with 3 CEOs and a VP of Recruiting in 2 Weeks

Networking was never one of my strongest skills. I am sometimes shy when it comes to meeting new people, and as a 23 year old who is just two years out of college, I don’t have much of an address book or LinkedIn network (but I have a ton of Facebook friends). The first stage of building my company, One Day, One Job, didn’t require much networking, for I was trying to get college aged job and internship hunters to visit my site. Building personal relationships can certainly help build traffic to a website, but it’s not the most efficient method. Recently, I have started to focus on the second stage of growing my business — encouraging entry-level employers to work with us as advertisers and consulting clients. For a while I sat around waiting for people to find me. I figured that companies would see the potential in One Day, One Job as a recruitment tool and would throw themselves at us. A few companies approached us out of the blue, but I knew that improving my networking skills could speed along the process. I recently joined Twitter, and I realized how valuable the micro-blogging/social networking service can be in terms of business development. Within the span of 2 weeks, I was able to get meetings with 3 CEOs and one VP of Recruiting (who also happens to be the owner of this blog) through relationships initiated and built on Twitter.

Here’s how I did it:

I Joined

This is self explanatory. Social networks do you almost no good if you don’t participate. You can use them as informational resources, but participation increases their value by an factor of ten.

I Sought Out Interesting People

You need to test the waters before diving into Twitter (or any social network). By finding interesting people to “follow,” you can learn the ropes and proper etiquette while instantly reaping the best informational benefits that Twitter has to offer. How do you find interesting people? You wander around Twitter. I have no idea how I came across each of the 4 people mentioned in the title of this article, but I can ensure you that it was through other Twitter users. If you’re new to Twitter, you can start by following me @willyf and Jason @jjbuss.

I Listened

Pay attention to what other people are saying. By learning about them through their tweets, you can determine who are the people that you want to build personal relationships with. After listening for a while, you can chime in and join the conversation by tweeting @ someone to ask or answer a question or make a comment.

I Talked About Myself

Nobody is going to follow you if you’re boring. Everybody has something interesting to say, so talk about what you’re passionate about. You might be surprised at what people find interesting, so be yourself — don’t try too hard. It’s much easier to initiate meaningful conversations when you have lots of followers.

I Interacted

As you follow more people and gain more followers you can start getting involved in more conversations. If you have something interesting to add to someone else’s conversation, jump in! Just make sure that you’re being genuine and not self-serving. The biggest mistake that people can make when using a service like Twitter is asking someone for something before they have built a relationship. That doesn’t mean that you should go through pleasantries just to ask someone for a favor — you need to be honestly interested in the people whom you follow on Twitter if you want to build meaningful relationships.

I Took the Relationships Offline

Two of my meetings were in person and two were on the phone. Twitter is a great way to introduce yourself and build the foundation for a relationship, but it’s not a great tool for in-depth communication. By taking the relationship offline and having face to face (or voice to voice) contact, you completely change the nature of the relationship. It instantly becomes more meaningful.

Why Does This Matter?

Whether you are an entrepreneur like me, a job searcher, or a business professional, Twitter and other social networking services can provide amazing opportunities to meet new people and build business relationships. Although I haven’t yet done business with any of the people mentioned in the title of this blog post, the conversations that I’ve had with each of these people have been valuable enough to make me consider Twitter an essential tool in my networking repertoire. Without Twitter I never would have met these 4 wonderful people (and many more) who are willing and able to help me as I build my business. I’m sure that the relationships that I have developed and will develop on Twitter will be essential to the success of One Day, One Job.

Submitted by Willy Franzen for the August 2008 Talent Buzz blog contest. Willy Franzen is the founder of One Day, One Job and One Day, One Internship.

Willy Franzen
One Day, One Job and One Day, One Internship
willy@onedayonejob.com
203.257.7551

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Immigration 101 from my desk

Immigration is a word that conjures up all kinds of interest and opinions. When people find out what I do, I am usually barraged with questions, asked for opinions and input on the immigration issues facing the country. I have some pretty strong opinions about immigration - both legal and illegal but none have any bearing on what I do in my work. Three of my four grandparents were immigrants and am grateful that the system worked. Worked - past tense or at least was more transparent.

When problems arise (and they usually do) I work closely with our local congressman’s office and his DHS liaison (every office has one). There is a comment that replays in my head about process - that - sit down for this - the process was originally intended to be managed by the individual, without aid. I chuckled. No one in their right, or left, mind would ever think that this process could be navigated, successfully, without a host of attorneys, paralegals and consulates.

I had someone write and ask me to share some of my immigration experience and decided to do it over a series of postings. I am the Responsible Office for our Exchange Visitor program through the Department of State; coordinate all the H1b work visas and international travel, Permanent Residency applications and the easiest of them all, NAFTA - TN. I have a book full of unbelievable and hilarious stories, depending on your point of view. It’s also important to share how our border agents seem to be treating our internationals scholars as them come to the US to teach - some are terrific and some aren’t.

I have been doing this kind of work for ten + years and despite what people think, border patrol and immigration has always been a serious evolution. 9/11 catapulted the topic into mainstream and created TSA. It seemed to give wider latitude to consulates and border agents (and that isn’t a compliment). Decisions can be arbitrary without reason or explanation, and terribly inconsistent. There seems to be no accountability. and virtually no transparency.  A former law firm with whom I worked had runners who would visit two of our entry ports to see who was working the gates and staffing the offices. The agents working would determine the entry of the international visitor. This is not an uncommon practice.

In my administration, there are a couple of ground rules. We don’t pay bribes. Period. That can be a problem when dealing with some countries. We do however pay reciprocity fees and expedited fees. They are darn close to bribes, only paid to government officials, not individuals.

We do require our international colleagues to be responsible for their immigration status, paperwork and documents. When they leave the country without documents, and can’t get back in, it’s their problem (which quickly becomes mine) and it is also their expense. If a passport expires, it is not my problem. While I will provide support, it is their responsibility to know their individual country’s consulate rules, processing time and accessibility. Some require visitors to call a 900 number and pay for the call. Others require payment upfront before an appointment is extended. Others may close for local holidays. I can’t stay on top of each consulate around the world.

And people need to follow the rules. It isn’t optional. While higher education and its governance runs well on collaboration, discussion and compromise, immigration does not. It’s concrete, specific and as I say frequently, without a sense of humor.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Feel free to share or email.

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