Stupid Rules

Yondolla over at Thoughts from a Foster Family (the first blog I ever really read by they way) has been talking about having to enforce rules that she thinks are, well, stupid. While I can only imagine the frustration of having to enforces the Stupid Rules in your home, I have plenty of experience with them in my professional life.

Ya see, before returning to school, I worked at a social service agency handeling TANF cases. The goverment is the absolute supreme creator of stupid rules and a HUGE part of my job seemed to be the unwitting human sent out to enforce them. It was terrible. Absolutely awful really. Many times my job with the rule police left me feeling like the worst human being on the planet and that in the course of doing my job I was undoing all the good work I actually was doing. I made people cry, scream, and yell. I have been called a witch with a capital "B" more times than most. And frankly I don't blame any of those people. I would have done the same thing in their positions. Heck, I was miserable there; I probably was being a b*tch

I have now returned to the land of Ivory Towers and intellectual rigor, oh and yes of course, of Stupid Rules. Most of these rules seem strangely to be waved for me when I flash my postgrad id in someone's face (I get that this is not always true in the States) but my undergraduate students, most of whom I have grown quite fond of, do not have this luxury. Most of the time, I can help. I can solve the problem by flashing my magical card and making it all go away. But, every now and again I am force to me the face of the Faceless Machine once again. I still feel sh*tty doing it but I have gotten better at it. Most of the time, I let the victim know that I think this is stupid too. This is poor comfort but it makes me feel better. And, itsn't that what matters most?