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Report: Suffolk probate office really is full of racists
By adamg on Sat, 03/25/2017 - 3:08pm
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Strikes me as a tie
The racist staff is bad. Should be fired.
Meanwhile, Arroyo was (according to one investigator) an "absent or aloof manager who did little to protect his new hires from the open hostilities of entrenched employees."
As a constituent, I expect that if an elected official with executive status finds themselves in a situation where their staff is so poor, and then further finds that the court chain-of-command won't help them do anything about it, that the elected official would have a long paper trail of their escalated complaints. Further, they'd have gone to the newspapers and raised a ruckus.
And the consultant brought in to fix the place rolled up her sleeves, dug into the backlog of work, and made stuff happen. Did he?
When I see the paper trail of the complaints Arroyo has filed for his staffs' misbehavior, the action he's taken against the saboteurs on his staff, and of course the parking records that show his 50-60 hour work-weeks spent trying to fix the place, then my judgement may shift more to his favor.
Question
How much executive management experience do you have in a public employment setting? Alternatively, how much HR experience in a civil service setting?
It sounds like you expected him to behave like a CEO or upper management at a failing company. It also sounds like you fully expect that such behavior would have remedied the situation. Perhaps you need to understand that corporate management is different from a bureaucracy in many ways.
Those probate court employees are civil service protected?
I highly doubt it. Unionized? Yes. Seems like blatant racism on the job qualifies as just cause. Just because something is hard to do doesn't mean you still don't need to do it.
In any event, the issue is what Arroyo did to manage the office. All evidence points to him being completely ineffective. This race stuff is a smokescreen he's throwing up to distract from his mismanagement.
Or contrarily
This mismanagement stuff is a smokescreen thrown up to distract from prevalent racism.
Good Leadership is not setting or sector dependent
MA state employment laws governing workplace practices (e.g. MGL Chapter 151B) are the same whether bad behavior is occurring in the private or public sector. In fact, from my own experience, I would even suggest that within the public sector, a manager has more "tools" available to identify, resolve and prevent problems than the private sector.
This situation is repeated throughout agencies in the Commonwealth. We elect or appoint incompetent and/or inept people to lead organizations fully knowing that there is little in their background or profession skillset required to successfulyl resolve historical organizational problems. Civil services rules or CBA do not inhibit enforcing lawful workplace behavior or reasonable performance of job duties.
This looks like a classic example of the Peter Principle in action.The Peter Principle, which posits that employees are promoted to their level of incompetence, and then everyone is stuck with them there.
The Peter Principle is rife wherever hierarchies exist - multinational companies, government, the Civil Service, hospital management, the groves of academe and public transport. This situation is instructive in that we can see at this local, relatively small level, what can happen when the role is larger and the stakes are greater.
This is most timely, because we have all just witnessed what may be the most extraordinary example of the Peter Principle — Donald Trump being elected president.Think about it. We all aspire to finding the perfect job that matches our skills, personality and work habits. As the head of his own private company, Trump had the ideal setup. One hundred percent the boss, he negotiated the big deals, delegated the detail work to others, got all the public credit and assiduously promoted himself as his brand.
But now he's being held responsible for every little thing — the Russians, his campaign promises, being truthful, commander-in-chief decisions, tweeting, questionable business deals, on and on. And worst of all, an awful lot of people don't really seem to adore him. He should have quit during the primaries, blamed it on the dishonest media, and rolled out Trump TV. He'd be so happy now ...
Can someone explain
What and WHO are the Trial Administrators? Who is responsible for OVERSIGHT on the Trial Administrators and the County Probate Office?
If these comments were indeed made, isn't it time for a STATE or FEDERAL INVESTIGATION?
I'm sure those responsible read the GLOBE.
Organization of the Trial Court
The Administrative Office of the Trial Court (AOTC) is the office which supervises all of the Commonwealth's trial courts -- Superior, District, Boston Municipal Court, Probate and Family, Housing, Land, Juvenile. Each division in turn has an administrative office which deals with issues unique to that division. The AOTC asked a recently retired Probate Court judge to investigate and an administrator from Essex Probate Court to audit office practices. So, this IS a state investigation.
Suffolk Probate has been a troubled place for some time. I have been told by an employee there that about 90% of cases are being handled by persons who are not represented by attorneys and who, for the most part, have no idea about how to manage their own cases. Even if everyone working there did their jobs perfectly, the fact is that the staff has been cut and cut again as a result of budget cuts. There are not enough employees to handle the workload under the best of circumstances. This fact does not excuse bad management or outrageous behavior by employees. I expect to see a serious housecleaning over the next few months.
Quite frankly I can't recall
Quite frankly I can't recall a place of employment where there wasn't bigotry and sexism coming from all angles. Seemed like there was always someone making stereotypical remarks about someone else. Except, in my experience it didn't just come from white people: all ethnicities and genders participated. Worst came from the male-dominated departments... the mistreatment of women was pretty bad. And of course there were reports made to HR, but they were too afraid to really do much about it for fear of getting sued. The only guy who was fired was the one who kept watching porn on his computer despite being warned to stop -- it was an open concept office, so we all saw it. Nasty.
Sorry, your personal experiences elsewhere are not relevant.
This is a real world, ongoing situation at the Suffolk Probate. This talk of "Aren't we all racists to some degree?" and "hey, sometimes minorities can be just as bad" shows that you have no experience with the actual topic. Suffolk Probate court is the worst collection of meat heads you would ever want to run across. I forgive you if you are lucky enough never to have had any dealings with them. Trust me when I tell you they have acted for decades under the impunity that comes from working for an elected office, which no one knows about. Since MA voters don't know about these small county offices they just vote for whoever is listed as D on the ballot. The group that Ianella employed during his tenure are just the kind described in the Globe article: "If they don't speak English, then f em, I don't have to help them." then "they are bringing in translators? they're stealing my job! (which I refuse to do). It's like someone gave a bunch of drunk aunts and uncles absolute authority.
Suffolk probate is full of HACKS,
of all so called races, genders, etc. Political hires are by their very nature arrogant, entitled, lazy , and they loath Change and being out of their comfort zone...unfortunately, it's human nature. Working in such places is like Orwell's Animal Farm.
Mr. Arroyo, himself a low hanging fruit politician, hired his share of friend's unemployable brother and sister in laws. No one should be surprised by the results.
Registry needs to be mainly black and Latino staff.
Employees at the Registry should be mainly black and Latino. It needs to be better staffed, too, but at the very least it should be mainly non-white workers.
It’s a public office to serve the public of the county. It should reflect the public demographically also. The customers at Family Court are overwhelmingly black and Latino. The staff at the windows and front desk and help desks are overwhelmingly white and don’t speak any language than English. It’s outrageously bad customer service in a city and county that is mainly non-white.
Customers at the Registry are dealing with painful life-altering cases such as custody, adoption, divorce, child support, and wills. They deserve consideration and assistance as needed. They pay the taxes to pay the salaries of the staff.
Most of the people who use the registry do not have lawyers. They need help with understanding the process and paperwork. The staff can’t give legal advice but they can assist people with the forms. I’ve been helped by some very decent white staff there, but I’ve seen others be very rude and abrupt.
Everyone should read the Globe story. It’s incredible. And I bet the tip of the iceberg. Link below and in the original post. Here’s some tidbits:
“An employee questioned whether litigants should be required to speak English and wondered if they had to help people who did not.”
Seriously? Public servant? It’s outrageous.
“The Trial Court’s own investigation unearthed stories of staffers using racial slurs for Latinos and African-Americans.”
And then (they can’t even do a competent cover-up)…
“Court officials asked the Globe and other media outlets not to publish letters marked “confidential,” which they said had been sent inadvertently.”
I’m sure they don’t want it public. The rampant racism produced this punishment: “one employee was reassigned and a second received training and “is being closely monitored.””
Seriously? Files disappearing for people of color such that they have to take off work to come back to court three times for the same procedure because the file is gone? And no one disciplined, just one sent for 'training' and being monitored?
The one concrete provable negative thing the investigators wrote about Arroyo was that he “failed to see a joke about Asians as offensive.” That would be wrong of him. But they hold that up to the same level as a white staff calling a Cape Verdean a monkey? Were all the people in that room found guilty of not finding that offensive?
If it’s true that “management’s tentative stance regarding discipline and holding people accountable” was a problem, doesn’t that beg the question of what he was up against?
I’ve seen Arroyo in action over the years and he is not wallflower.
Maybe, just maybe, give Arroyo the power to discipline people without hamstringing him and, oh, maybe, don’t put him on leave. Leaving the new hires of color without him. Talk about blaming the victim.
Oh this is good: The investigator disagreed that longtime registry employees were sabotaging Arroyo and other registry employees of color. Instead, 'the investigator wrote that most of the longtime employees “feel unsure of their roles within the current day registry.” '
The current day? You mean the current Registrar who is Latino? That doesn’t disproves the sabotage, it just points out the reason some of the whites are angry. Which kind of proves the point.
This investigation is a fraud perpetrated on the public that unfortunately has to use the Registry.
There should be an outside investigation or more simply, give Arroyo the power to clean house.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/24/suffolk-registry-workers-des...
Employees at the Registry should be mainly black and Latino?
With this logic, do you support only race based hiring in the rest of the state based on the color of people's skin?
May I drop you a line to get your support for the Registrar of Probate in say, Barnstable, Plymouth, Franklin, Hampden, Nantucket, or Berkshire counties when they turn away a candidate who is of a darker hue because they have already met their "quota" based on the lower minority percentage demographics of their county?
I know the Registry of Probate in Suffolk County is a complete idiot show and Felix, who got elected not because of the color of his skin, but more for the same reason the Steve Murphy got elected, voters in Suffolk County looked at the name and said "I recognize that guy's name, here is my vote", is not exactly making himself glowing here with the way the office was run.
Please remember, there was a high school drop out from South Boston named John F. Kennedy who kept get elected State Treasurer in the 1950's because people thought they were voting for the other JFK. The voters of our state are not rocket scientists, and it is time for ROP to be made an appointed position, the way the Department of Revenue is run, but please, please, do not turn this into a time for racial revenge. What you calling for is a two wrongs to make a right solution.
We all deserve better.
Housing court
I couple of years ago I found myself needing to frequent the Housing Court office and saw none of this type of behavior. In fact, I was awed by the professionalism and high degree of customer service there despite the high work load and the overcrowded housing court faces. How did the probate court office end up full of belligerent racists while housing court, in the same courthouse, turn out so helpful to the public?
Housing Court is not an elected position.
The prevailing theory in these small county offices is that they are only beholden to the voters. As I said above not enough voters have any knowledge at all when they are faced with the ballot once every 6 years. At that point a bad manager can create a toxic atmosphere and you have to look at the quality of the hires. Most of them are done as political/ financial favors. This is how you end up with people who don't want to help people who don't speak English.
Housing court
I couple of years ago I found myself needing to frequent the Housing Court office and saw none of this type of behavior. In fact, I was awed by the professionalism and high degree of customer service there despite the high work load and the overcrowded housing court faces. How did the probate court office end up full of belligerent racists while housing court, in the same courthouse, turn out so helpful to the public?