When Protocol Defies Logic

I am a born rule-follower. I drive the speed limit on city and country roadways, often using cruise-control to ease the stress of staying within the limit. When I stand in line, I don’t approach the counter until asked to do so. I wait for the host or hostess to seat me in a restaurant. You will never find me in the express lane at the grocery store with more than the accurate number of items allowed in my hand-cart. I don’t believe in the motto “Rules were meant to be broken.” I largely believe that rules keep order and quell anarchy. I live with anxiety and for me that means that I become anxious with situations, people and things that I can not control. For me, rules are the antithesis of anxiety. Rules give me comfort…

Except when rules are just rules and serve no greater purpose. When rules and regulations degrade into accepted protocol and cease to serve the safety, convenience or learning model that they were designed to protect, help or educate, they have passed their expiration date and need to either be revamped or abolished altogether. I cannot stand protocol for protocol sake.

In the wake of 9/11, many places and organizations sought to tighten their entryways and limit the flexibility and accessibility of their environments in the name of safety. Airports and airlines demanded more stringent identification documents as well as limiting and eliminating certain items and materials from passing through security checkpoints and ending up on airplanes. Similarly, many businesses, especially those run by the government, required identification and recorded knowledge of people entering and leaving their buildings.

I wouldn’t argue the relevance of these rules and protocols in serving a greater good to know who is “in the building” at any given time, and therefore being able to track who is affected by activities within the building, as well as who might be responsible if something goes wrong. Unfortunately, when the protocol is established without a plan for execution that covers all the bases, then the protocol is simply protocol for protocol sake, and does nothing to actually enhance the security it is trying to elevate.

In 2002 I was still working in undergraduate admissions at Framingham State (College) University. At a mini-fair hosted by Holliston High School in Holliston, MA, admissions counselors were not allowed in the building until they showed a picture ID and gave their name to the guidance staff member seated at the front door of the school. Then and now, I would not argue the decision to ask adult strangers entering a high school to show identification and write their names in a log book. What concerned me was the relevance of that ID and name on that day. The high school did not have a list of names of the college representatives who were expected to show up that day. They had no way of knowing that the person showing the ID was the counselor assigned to that school, or if that counselor indeed did work for that college. The protocol lacked a key element:  it didn’t have anything to balance the check it was making.

Recently I encountered a similar protocol quandary. My seventeen year old daughter applied for and got a job with Panera Bread. As part of a condition to be employed, Miranda was asked to get a Work Permit.  We were told that the work permit needed to come from her home school district. We live in Sturbridge but Miranda does not attend Tantasqua Regional High School. Several times over the phone and in person we were asked by representatives at the high school and the superintendent’s office, “Does she go to school here?” When I answered, “No” I was then asked, “Does she live in the district?” To which my answer was, “Yes, we live in Sturbridge.”

A work permit does not come from the high school that the students attends. It is granted by the school district in which the student lives. So it really doesn’t matter if the student goes to school there. The initial first question should be, “Does s/he live in the school district?”

Furthermore, there is a place on the work permit for a parent to sign their permission for the child to work. Why isn’t the work permit solely between the parent and the child and the employer? Why does the school system even need to be a part of the work permit process? If someone else should be knowledgeable of a student working, taking hours away from their studies, then why isn’t the work permit signed off on at the school the student attends?

When the process was complete, a complete stranger in the Tantasqua/Union 61 School District gave Miranda permission to work, without knowing anything about Miranda as a student or a person. What exactly did Tantasqua give her permission to do that I or her father could not have given on our own? I would encourage the necessity of a work permit if it came from the town administrator’s office, as knowledge of the young residents of town who are impacting the community, commerce and their own educations and family lives. In rare circumstances I’m sure there are situations of students being taken advantage of by either their families or the employer, and there should be a checks and balances system to protect minors.

Rules, regulations, protocols, guidelines – it doesn’t matter what you call them as long as you follow them – seems to be the philosophy of some ordinances. If these directives are to achieve what they are designed to achieve then they need to be vetted for inaccuracies, redundancies and ineffective steps that delay, harm, negate or completely avoid the intended result. Give me a rule that makes sense and I will follow it to a “T.” But unfortunately if you give me a rule that has me running around in circles to achieve nothing better than wasting my time, then I will have to declare foul and label myself a rebel. Or at least label myself confused and frustrated.