Responsibility

Responsibility is such a hard thing to learn and teach.  I am working on teaching my little ones how to be responsible for their actions and that every thing that they do has a consequence, good or bad.  I am not sure how as a society we can teach our children responsibility when as a society we do not want to take responsibility for our actions. 

This thought comes to me as I have been trying to help someone at work.  I did not create the program that the person is in, nor did I create the problem, but I am trying to help this person to the best of my ability.  The person who created the program and who is the logical choice to make sure the people in this program are taken care of feels no responsibility in this area.  This person has created a burdensome program that does not fit the typical criteria and has left the customer dangling in the breeze to try and fend for themselves and maneuver through the bureaucratic red tape of many departments to achieve the desired result.  Now I am faced with trying to muddle through the mess she created and try to help the student (s) achieve their goals. 

I am almost tempted to request to be the point person in my office for these students and guide them through the process so that we do not have further snafus due to the vacancy of responsibility by the creator of the program.  Should I or should I not?  How responsible do I feel?  Is it even my problem?  Isn’t it my job to help the customer?  Isn’t it the program creator's job to help her customer?  All these thoughts are running through my head when I talked with the program creator.  I was told that if the student didn’t do things correctly, it wasn’t the problem of the program creator – never mind that there are no clear steps to follow.  So here I am trying to help my customer, who my job depends on, satisfy their wants, while muddling through the lack of structure myself.  Granted the program creator is probably getting the big bucks for the idea that once created is abandoned to let someone else figure out the details of how to pay to achieve the goal.  What to do, what to do?

And is it even my responsibility?  What do you think?  What would you do?