Saturday, February 14, 2026

A Confession of Policy Violation (In The Name of Honesty)

 For the last few weeks, I have had several pangs of conscience over my past sins, even as far as back as a teenager (mainly concerning piracy, which have since been confessed and forsaken).

This confession piece is about my employer, USD 290.  I am a school custodian there, working as Lead Custodian at Lincoln Elementary.

Yes, I have received high ratings from my supervisor and praise from students, staff, supervisors, and the superintendent.

Yet, upon inspection of board policy and the district handbook, I discovered that I have fallen short of following the rules.  At times, I have used communication devices in disruption of my duties.  I have also used district supplies for personal things (such as using what may be district pen and paper to write an "infraction log", attempting to do what I am doing now on non-school equipment and supplies.).  I may have even violated the rules on gifts (to the district, not the kids as far as I know).  Oh, one more thing:  I may not have submitted every accident report I should have.  That, and I have not always followed my supervisor's orders.  There may be even other things I am in violation of.

Now, you may say, "These are petty things.  Who cares?". Well, I suppose God cares.  He sees every detail of my conduct, and knows when I fall short.

And you're right:  To my knowledge, I have not committed acts so serious as to warrant instant termination.  I suppose if I have, I would have already lost my job.

However, this post here is to ease my condemning conscience, and to provide honesty in case anyone asks for the reason why I say I'm not a great custodian or why I say I haven't followed the rules perfectly.

Not only that, but as a condition of employment, I agreed to follow such rules.  This, I have broken my word.  I have technically been unfaithful to the agreement.

Again, not only that, but I suppose I have never been faithful to any of the agreements I signed upon hiring and upon receiving my pay raises, when weighed against the above scrutiny.  At the very least, a few of my lapses of judgment have not gone unpunished though, as I was indeed written up in 2014 or 2015 for an incident of subpar performance.

If I am praised and awarded for outstanding conduct, I hope it's not because I followed the rules to the letter.  I have not.  And I suppose I will probably slip up in the future, not that this gives me a pass to do so, not at all but I just want to be honest.

And so, with this post, no one can ever say that I didn't slip my shortcomings under the rug.

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