Vignette: Shifting Bureaucratic Sands and Work Stoppages

Abstract

Supervision of our research at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) was assigned to a consultant from the Research Division, even though our project was under the Correctional Education Division. This, in effect, gave us two bosses at the CDCR, as well as a nominal third boss at UC Davis who handled the accounting between the CDCR and Chico State. We have already described the rocky start we experienced at the outset of the project when the consultant scolded us for not responding quickly enough to last minute changes in the request for proposal (RFP) (p. XX). This was just the first experience of what Andy called the “shifting sands” of decision-making that our project depended on. As it worked out, this was also the first of many supervising consultants for our project. By the end of the 3-year project, which included 10 months of work stoppages, we were on our fifth supervisor from Research because of several departures at the OCE due to retirement, transfer, and in one case death.