Documenting My Work Life

Some of you know that I irregularly post to another blog called "Documenting My Work Life" (keepingupwiththejob.blogspot.com). Well, this morning, inspiration struck: Why not just post work-related articles here?

Why?

The problem: I can never remember to post my daily updates on that other site. Between the posts I add here and the ones I post for my Indians baseball site, I end up forgetting to write what I did each day. I'm not exactly sure why I made it a separate site anyway.  Well, yeah, I do. The goal was to keep work life and personal life separate. The truth is: I can't. Maybe some folks can, but I'm not like that, it turns out.

So, I will be posting updates about various work-related items as daily as I can. I am not doing just so everyone can see what I do every day. In fact, the reason the site was created in the first place centers on the grant that provides the funding for my position. We have document our school visits, various projects, etc in order to show that the state is getting a proper return on their investment on the Technology Coordinator position. You can agree with the idea or disagree with it, but the fact remains we state-level Technology Coordinators are required to justify our positions with the legislature.

Frankly, I hated the idea at first. Our position is created by Arkansas state law. We are one of the few education positions to be so. Yet, lots of other positions in the state are not created by law and they don't have to justify squat. They simply get to exist and collect paychecks. For many years, we did not have to justify our position. In the last few years, though, the "need" for our position came into question, and so we've had to prove that we are needed.

For me, once I let the concept of proving my worth sink in, the documentation (not just n a blog or a log, but also in the form of travel receipts for school visits, state meetings, etc and other documentation) shows that the state is actually getting a heck of a lot more bang for their budgeted buck than they realize.  Documenting various problems I've encountered also helps when similar problems come up later. I look back on a post and take what I learned the first time to help fix the problem in a different location.

My plan is to tag work-related posts as "work life" and add other tags as necessary and as appropriate for those items.

Of course, I'll keep posting whatever random thoughts come along. After all, you never know what might just pop into my head!