Now I know why congress can't accomplish much

Last night there was a special meeting of the Assembly to approve the paternity/maternity leave policies written by the School Meeting. (note-the school meeting takes place once a week and is comprised of staff and students, the assembly is everyone in the school meeting plus the parents, I believe the assembly has to approve any policies that have a financial component). I went because I thought the policy should include a more flexible timeline for taking leave. As it was written it seemed that leave had to be taken in the first three months for fathers and the first six months for mothers. So that was my two cents.

I came away with mixed feelings about the whole system. On the plus side, I guess they use Roberts rules of order so everyone waits for their turn to speak and you have to make motions to vote or to table topics and that works pretty well. It definitely helps keep people on topic. Myself included(I am a rambler!). However, debating the minutae of a pretty basic policy starts to wear and an inordinate amount of time was spent on a point because it seemed to offend one person's more egalitarian sensibilities. At the same time, a huge change was made that turned it into one family leave policy and gave equal amount of time to both mothers and fathers. I thought that was a great idea.

One aspect of the policy was to give two months paid leave and then an additional month for each year that the person had been on staff up to six months. One assembly member objected because it didn't seem fair to be awarding extra benefits just because someone was having a baby and also because if you think people need a certain amount of paid time, that need doesn't change no matter how long you are on staff. I felt, and said so, that it was a perk and I didn't have a problem with that. Then I learned that there are no other distinctions like extra vacation time or differences in pay. That gave me pause but, and I didn't say this for 'twould have been off topic, I would totally vote for stuff like that so I know there was no inconsistency in my position. Anyway, we spent at least a half hour going back and forth on this and it was exhausting. The room was really hot and at things like this there is always one person who talks really slowly or just doesn't know how to make their point and that is when my attention starts to wander.

As I was sitting there, I was thinking about how the School Meeting took a lot of time to draft this and then we had the power to come along and gut it. It made me realize why legislative bodies seem so slow and dysfunctional. When you have thoughtful people discussing a topic thoughtfully it just takes time to come to a resolution. Compared to many other meetings that I have attended in my life I have to say that most of the comments and ideas presented at this one were thoughtful and while I was tempted to be dismissive of the debate as being too academic or not so important because we were talking about a situation that was not going to come up very often I know that the underlying philosophy and reasoning behind something mundane as personnel policy is important. It may be boring and painful at times but it is worth debating. Unfortunately I didn't even get to stay for the final vote because Ray was home with three of the kids and I had a feeling that bedtime was not going well. It was very frustrating to have to leave but now I know to either bring more of my kids with me or get a babysitter.