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Gak.
The "interview" with the "applicant" for the Grounds Supervisor was really a meeting where Maintenance Director stood up and said "here's your new boss, I like him, so you have to". Blech. Guy showed okay in the meeting, but what Turf Guy has heard about him through the grapevine is not flattering.
Supposedly, Applicant is going to come in and "not make any changes for a year or so". That's how Maintenance Director was supposed to come in, too, and that lasted all of three months.
(1) Applicant's resume indicates he's been on lots of multi-million dollar projects. How will he adjust to working with an increasingly limited budget that starts in July and is out of money by October?
(2) Applicant's all-important degree is in Business. His horticultural/grounds education consists of a 10-wk short course in turf management from U of Penn, which he says gave him "a very good working knowledge of 90 trees and 100 shrubs." He does admit that he hasn't used that information, and those numbers have fallen, but he insists he knows the common and native things very well. Mrph. Until he proves otherwise, for me, this puts him in the same category as the landscape architects I've had to deal with: he knows just enough to be a problem. And yes, I plan to take him out on the tree trail and test his "very good knowledge of native trees".
(3) Despite Maintenance Director's assertions to the contrary, he is very much a political animal (weasel? or maybe pig is more his style...), and I fear he has hired someone like himself.
(4) One of Maintenance Director's important hiring criteria was that Applicant get along with the rest of the staff. Between the enforced "you don't have a choice, you will accept this person" introduction by Maintenance Director, and the feeling in the department (not just grounds, but all the maint staff) that Grounds Foreman got shafted, Maintenance Director has set this guy up to fail. AND, Turf Guy's info suggests that "getting along" was one of Applicant's weak spots.
In short, I'm not sure I like him or not, but I really don't like the way this has been handled, and it's going to be difficult for me to not take it out on Applicant. And the rest of the staff feel the same way.
Supposedly, Applicant is going to come in and "not make any changes for a year or so". That's how Maintenance Director was supposed to come in, too, and that lasted all of three months.
(1) Applicant's resume indicates he's been on lots of multi-million dollar projects. How will he adjust to working with an increasingly limited budget that starts in July and is out of money by October?
(2) Applicant's all-important degree is in Business. His horticultural/grounds education consists of a 10-wk short course in turf management from U of Penn, which he says gave him "a very good working knowledge of 90 trees and 100 shrubs." He does admit that he hasn't used that information, and those numbers have fallen, but he insists he knows the common and native things very well. Mrph. Until he proves otherwise, for me, this puts him in the same category as the landscape architects I've had to deal with: he knows just enough to be a problem. And yes, I plan to take him out on the tree trail and test his "very good knowledge of native trees".
(3) Despite Maintenance Director's assertions to the contrary, he is very much a political animal (weasel? or maybe pig is more his style...), and I fear he has hired someone like himself.
(4) One of Maintenance Director's important hiring criteria was that Applicant get along with the rest of the staff. Between the enforced "you don't have a choice, you will accept this person" introduction by Maintenance Director, and the feeling in the department (not just grounds, but all the maint staff) that Grounds Foreman got shafted, Maintenance Director has set this guy up to fail. AND, Turf Guy's info suggests that "getting along" was one of Applicant's weak spots.
In short, I'm not sure I like him or not, but I really don't like the way this has been handled, and it's going to be difficult for me to not take it out on Applicant. And the rest of the staff feel the same way.
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