Why I Disagree with the Need to Have Photo IDs to Vote

I recently posted John Oliver's take on voting and photo IDs to my Facebook page.  I had someone respond "Why wouldn't someone have an ID?  It should be required" (sic).  My response was long-winded to say the least, and because of that, I wanted to post it here.  It has also been forever since I posted anything at all, so I figured it couldn't hurt to actually do something on this page.

Please keep in mind this important fact: voting is a fundamental right guaranteed by Constitutional amendments. There are NO other things that you need an ID for which are basic rights in the U.S.

1. Some people don't have IDs simply because they don't need them. They don't fly on planes, buy guns, use checks at stores, and the list goes on.

2. Some people can't get IDs becuase they don't have a birth certificate (yes this happens for the elderly, rural Americans born outside a hospital). These cases are increasingly rare, but they are out there.

3. If you need to get an original birth certificate to get an ID (as I did when moving to MI), it takes time. Sometimes a long time. And money. If you don't start this process months and months in advance, you won't get an ID in time to register to vote.

4. You may be lucky enough (as am I) to never worry about getting the cash together to renew your ID, much less pay for the ride to the Sec. of State to get that ID renewed. However, there are many people who don't have that cash. I consider myself blessed to always have that money now, but there were times in graduate school when it wasn't easy to come up with it; or even after graduate school and before a good job when I didn't get a day off when the Sec. of State was open, and couldn't afford an unpaid day. It isn't easy for everyone you know. I don't forget these days, and this helps me understand the plight of others who's basic right as a US citizens are being undermined due to costs and time they simply may not have.

5. At the same time many states started to require IDs to vote, they cut the hours of (particularly rural) Sec. of State offices. Doing this makes it very hard for some people to get those offices. Think people who work more than one job and can't get paid days off, the disabled, the elderly, those who don't have their own transportation and rely on the sometimes rare or even nonexistent public transportation (Swanton had none, remember).... Add this to the fact that in some very rural states (i.e. Texas) some of the Sec. of State offices can be 100 miles or more away from where you live. Still don't think it's a burden?

6. I am not sure about the Sec. of State where you live, but here in MI, the wait can exceed 2 hours easily (not kidding!). I have actually gone to the office, pulled a number, waited an hour or so, gone and eaten lunch, and come back only to wait another 30 minutes or more to be called for a photo and renewal. This is why it can take an entire day off to get and ID. And it's only worse when the Sec. of State office is open once a month (yes, there are MANY of these, and in TX there are even 78 offices which are TRANSIENT) which means it's insanely busy that one day.

7. As a student, who moved every 6-12 months for affordable rent, the costs of constantly keeping the ID in date can be high. Add this to the wait at the Sec. of State.... You get the idea.

8. Should we talk about mistakes on birth certificates too? These do occur. Having been born in the age of carbon paper, I actually have two different middle names, one on the "front' copy of the birth certificate (Ann) and one on the "back" copy (Anne). The person completing the form lifted the "e" off the front copy, but forgot to correct the back copy. Yes, this has caused problems, and not only with my security clearances, but with my IDs, my social security card - the list is a long one.

9. In 2010, all of the birth certificates of Americans born in Puerto Rico expired! To get a new birth certificate, you need a (guess... go ahead) ... photo ID. To get the photo ID, you need a birth certificate. Figure that one out.

10. In TX (sorry, but they're really bad), you need a copy of a photo ID/driver's license to get a copy of your birth certificate. To get the photo ID/driver's license you need a birth certificate. Let's hope Mom ordered a few extra when you were born and has one to give to you to get this ball rolling.

11. Shall we discuss costs of said birth certificates? Louisiana reportedly charges up to $80. In many states it's $30. Think fixed income, already have to decide between rent and food, or rent and medicines, and where is that money coming from?

So let's look at who's out in the cold here - the poor and elderly. Who is the largest cross-section of poor? The minorities and students. Who votes Democrat? You guess it. This is why the GOP is so proud of how the ID laws have worked and can say that those laws have directly impacted votes for Democrats - it's true and the middle-class buys into the idea that IDs are not so bad to get and should be required.

All that said, it doesn't matter how you feel about how easy or hard IDs are to get, it still boils down to a few simple facts. First, the GOP is only pushing the requirements so that certain groups don't vote (they SAID this themselves, out loud, more than once, in more than one way). Second, there is very, very little voter fraud so the idea that we need IDs to protect against it is a false and misleading argument. Third, we as a country watch over the voting in other countries and determine whether or not elections there were fair and free (think Iraq, many countries in Africa, the list is a long one), and at no point has any US representative there ever questioned the need for an ID to allow voting - contrary to this, they rail again the requirement. We are hypocrites for doing this when we don't see the need in other countries, and even bigger hypocrites when those same "representatives" insist we need IDs to vote, yet cheat and vote for their fellow "representatives" during legislative voting.

Welcome Victims

A very long time ago I mentioned that I probably wouldn't blog often due to being a new mother.  Obviously that was a HUGE understatement.  Not often has become approximately 5 years.  I cannot believe how the time has flown.  Now I'm two children into motherhood, on to my second job since the last post, and feeling every bit of five years older.

During all that change and time I've complained, droned, ranted, lectured, and just plain told bad stories aplenty.  Just ask my husband and sister.  Or possibly anyone else.  I just haven't written it here.  Let's hope I can get to it again.  Maybe then I'll stop requiring the hubby to listen quite so often.  I'm sure he'd like that.  Although I'm subjecting even more people to pain...hmmm.  Ethical questions live somewhere there....

Entropy

Have you ever had one of those days when your thoughts just don't want to get in line and play nice? When your mind is that of a 2 year-old - jumping from topic to topic, place to place? Moreover, their are a myriad of people helping it jump around by demanding your attention in a thousand places for a hundred things at once? I'm having one of those days today.

For me, it all started out well enough today. I even had about an hour or so in which I actually got some of my desk cleared off at work and things were beginning to take some order. But everything went down the tubes this afternoon. I was pulled from place to place and ended up having more on my desk at the end of the day than I had started with in the beginning.

These are the days when you just know that the laws of physics are wreaking havoc with you and you can't but take it personally after a while. Forget Saturn and various moons. Entropy is the current ruling "celestial body".

Of Totalitarian States and Democratic Institutions

From May 2006 until June 2007, I had quite a trying period, in case you haven't gathered that yet. I went from being a coordinator in a clinical trials office to being a manager in the regulatory section of the same office. It was a job I honestly thought I could do. I approached it as an opportunity, and a position in which I could have a positive influence. Yes, this is what I thought despite the fact that my immediate predecessor quit the job after only a few weeks. And before her? Well, no one was in the position for nigh on 3 years. Add this to the regular turnover of staff and your starting to get the picture (I hired 7 new employees in that year, and lost 9 mostly due to upper management).

In the end, though, despite my dedication and far too many hours of work, I had to leave for my own sanity. Apparently the fact that I took initiative was an issue. And because my direct supervisor put me in an impossible position (which she and others readily admitted on a regular basis) I was eventually to be seen by a vice president who only talked directly to me once as not having any potential. It got to the point that I felt like the punching bag in a boxing gym.

But that is not the end point of the blog today. The real surprise to this situation has been the long-term outcome. After agonizing over my decision, I took a job with a health system 80 miles from my home. This means that I drive 1.5 hours each day, each way to and from work. But it's worth it. I love my job. I am appreciated, depended upon, and (brace yourselves) regularly thanked for both my abilities and initiative. What a change.

But tonight came an even bigger shock to my system than having a great job. While being appreciated has been such a rare thing in my career, and I'm still wallowing in the wonders of my new position, I found out that it's not just my new employer who thinks that I have some intelligence to offer. Tonight I sat down and opened my e-mail and to my wonder, another job offer is coming my way. This is a job I interviewed for about 2.5 months ago, it's not with just anyone and I had given up on getting it. To boot, it's actually with one of the most powerful institutions in my line of work - the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).

To say the least, I am in great shock here. I have been beaten up for so long that just being thanked is delightful. Now this? The largest and most powerful regulatory body in the country thinks that I have ability and, gasp, potential? I'm still in shock over the e-mail and will have to look at it repeatedly to prove to myself that this is not a dream. And if it isn't? Well, wouldn't it be interesting to be part of an FDA audit team.

Success

I recently became aware of someone who's feelings seem to be dreadfully hurt by the success of an enterprise. The reason? Having been a former director possibly?

I got to thinking about this situation because, as I noted in my last post, I have recently changed jobs, including companies. Until now, I have been happy to report that my successors have not lived up to my reputation. This is always a wonderful feeling, no matter who you are. Just knowing that you are irreplaceable makes you also feel somewhat immortal. You will be remembered for what you can accomplish. You end up occasionally being more impressive in your own absence than you were had you stuck around.

At my last place of employment, for example, management is in the process of completely re-vamping the hierarchy of power. I personally had suggested this happen, and railed against the status quo before leaving. I felt changes were needed in management as well those we managed. I said it to a few people on my way out the door, although I don't know that I was only marginally recognized for having said these things. The real point here, though, is that as part of this process, I am being replaced by between 3 and 4 persons. This gives me somewhat of an inflated ego, and believe me I like to mention this in an effort to ameliorate the pain of leaving my employer of 16 years. Bottom line is that it makes me feel good to know that not only could I not succeed at my job because it was too overwhelming, but that many people agreed and thought that it would be overwhelming not just for me, but for anyone. In the meantime, I can feel like I held things together while I was there, and that no one can accomplish what I couldn't accomplish.

Knowing this is the plan for moving my former office forward, though, doesn't make me feel better about one thing - that they may succeed without me where they were not able to succeed while I was there. Knowing that there is a re-structering happening just makes me wonder if the office will be better now. If it is and I'm not a part of it, does that make me a failure? Should I have tried harder while I was there even if it was draining me heart and soul? Will they talk about how the office could have always been better had I just been better?

These are questions we all grapple with as we move on in life. And the feeling of not being missed, or not being wanted back is a hard one to grapple with as we try to believe that we as individuals are important.

Hiatus

I would love to be able to call the last 16 months a sabbatical, but that would be so very much an untruth....

Besides my son getting older and reminding daily of just how smart a 22 month-old can be, so many other things have happened.

I interviewed for so many jobs, I have managed to lose track of them. And I don't even want to begin to count the number of applications I sent out. Thank goodness for paperless systems. I would have single-handedly reduced an old-growth forest to stumps using real paper. I spent a lot of time at the University of Michigan, and some in Toledo, Ohio, with various prospects. I got a lot of second interviews and lot of bad offers. But in the long run I got a new job and that is what counts. And I'm still waiting to hear back from the FDA regarding my interview with them. Crossing my fingers on that one, even though the pay scale is awful.

I now work at ProMedica Health System. What a change from a the lifetime I have so far spent in academics. Future blog topics will now likely encompass the story of how this change has come to pass, how I'm fairing, how the family is fairing and how Sam is growing like a weed in mind and body. For now, I just wanted to check in with a short message proving I'm still alive out here.

Hope there are still a few of you out there reading...I may actually keep this thing up this time around.

The Rewards of Incompetence and Indifference

Raise your hands, how many of you have felt like you were working with the most incompetent person in the world, whether it be a manager or a coworker? Ok, ok, those of you with both hands up, knock it off, we get the point!

Recently I was promoted to manage an area of the clinical trials office (CTO) in which I have worked for about a year. Previous to the CTO, I was a project manager for 4 years for multiple research protocols in epidemiology. Besides human subjects, what was the one similarity between both of these positions? The indifference or outright incompetence of some of the people who had come before me and even some who worked with me was glaring.

The sad part of the situation is that I have always found out that these same people have been rewarded for their attitudes or stupidity, sometimes repeatedly, while I bump my head on the glass ceiling of scientific research. I have never, and probably will never, understand how people who cannot perform the basic duties of their jobs get to the position wherein they earn a higher wage than people who work harder than them. That is unless it's because of cowardice or guilt on the part of management when it comes to firing people. Instead, sometimes the management will do exactly the opposite of what is required, lauding the bad employee and giving her raises to keep her happy and stop her from "stirring the pot". All the while, she dumps her job on someone else, because there is always that someone in each office who has such a strong concern for the work to be done, that she can't stand to see things go poorly, so she tries to pick up all of the slack.

In the meantime, though, the work actually does suffer. Sadly it's only AFTER the person in question leaves the job that you usually find out exactly how poorly the job was performed (or not performed as it were). I have seen studies with data tables which didn't even come close to agreeing with the patient charts when reviewed, reports wherein numbers were outright made up, paperwork for multiple studies mixed together because the person couldn't or didn't care to file correctly, and backlogs of work over 1.5 years old which no one knew about until a desk was searched after the worker's (and I use that word lightly) departure.

I have actually had one such person I was directly responsible for supervising. But what happened when I practically begged to let the person go? I was told to back off as the person had worked in the department for a long time and everyone liked her. SO WHAT!? It doesn't matter how much experience a person has, or how much others will get upset on a personal basis when a worker is released. When someone refuses to perform, or cannot perform at the level at which he was hired, management should be behooved to remove him. It's not only a diservice to others in the office, but to the worker himself, if he's allowed to remain on board and be nothing more than ballast which is hauling the ship down in the water.

If you really think about it, too, when others see the success of the inept and lazy, do you really think you'll be able to inspire them and get a good product out of them? Of course the answer is no! So next time you are in a position wherein you have someone you really like, but they just cannot or will not pull their weight, please think about letting them move on to another job. You can even help them find a better fitting job if you feel guilty about your decision. If you don't move them on, you can look forward to decreased productivity not just from them, but all of the people who rely on their work, all of the people who are depressed because they don't get recognition for actually doing their work, all of those who are overworked because they are trying to pick up that person's slack, and those who are just burning out because of the situation. And who needs a bad worker as an example to a new employee or a young person?

Think of it that way and try to not feel guilty if you held the axe, or angry if a friend of yours was just released for not doing her job. That is, don't feel guilty if you can break or have broken through that glass ceiling of management and make such decisions.