Footprints

SEMS stands for Substitute/Employee Management System. This is how I get substitute assignments. An employee signs into this system and creates an absence specifying the dates, times, location, wether or not a substitute is needed, and possibly requesting a certain substitute by locating them by name or phone number. The absence then goes into SEMS as an available job and begins calling substitutes on the phone. Subs can view this job online (at the Smart Find Express website) or hear it if they call in on the phone and can then either accept or deny the assignment. If a sub is requested then the job MUST be offered to this person before it is offered to any other sub. Only when this person denies the assignment is it available to all the other subs.

I've had problems with this system before. The main one being that I was requested for a job and SEMS offered it to someone else before me. If there is a problem such as this, the only remedy to the problem lies with the Sub Desk. Either the employee or the substitute must call the Sub Desk, explain the problem, and see if they can fix it. It can USUALLY be fixed without another problem. The down side to the Sub Desk is that they don't get into the office until 7am and then they never answer the phone! And it's stupid for both the sub and the employee to call and call and call and waste their time in the morning to try and fix the problem which by the time someone at the Sub Desk actually answers the phone, it's too late. What's too late? The substitute has 1 hour from the time they accept the job to arrive at the location. So if even if an assignment starts at 8:00, if the sub accepts it at 8:15, they have until 9:15 to get there.

Let me explain the situation that occurred this morning. Last night I accepted an assignment for a school in Chino from 9-3. Deon called me this morning asking if I could work for him from 7-1. At first I said I already had an assignment but then realized 7-1 would be better since I had too work at Sylvan in the afternoon and would be late if I kept the 9-3 position and I wouldn't have time to do my h/w in the afternoon. So I said I would just cancel the assignment I had and take his instead. Deon had already requested another sub, Manny, who was unavailable so I should have been able to accept it. Unfortunately, I couldn't view or hear the assignment. I couldn't view or hear ANY available assignments! Odd. Deon tried to cancel his absence and create a new one requesting me (instead of Manny), but there was no option to do so (which is also odd because there used to be that option).

We both began calling the sub desk to see what was wrong with the system and so they could assign that absence to me (they are like the god of SEMS, usually). But with it being only 6:25 am, nobody was there to answer the phone. We both kept calling anyway. Someone finally answered me at 7:20 and said that the substitute, who had picked up the assignment at 6:30, would have been on her way already and it was too late to assign it to me, especially because Manny had been requested and not me. Deon called me 20 minutes later saying that nobody had shown up yet and asked if I'd gotten the absence. I explained what the sub desk lady (Pam) told me and he said Pam had told him that the sub didn't pick it up until 6:59am. That's a whole half hour later than when Pam told ME the sub picked it up! So at 7:20 then, when I spoke to Pam, it wouldn't have been too late to change the assignment to me because the sub still had 40 minutes to get there. So why did she say so? I still don't know. And why couldn't I see any available jobs? Pam said it was because I cancelled my previously assigned job and SEMS believed I wasn't available to accept any. That's new. SEMS has never thought that about me before when I cancelled an assignment.

So I'm angry that I'm not working today, at all, because by the time everything was figured out, there were no jobs available for me to work anywhere that the sub desk could assign me to. I'm also angry that I had to spend all morning on the phone trying to figure out why I couldn't view or accept any assignments including the one Deon wanted to request me for but couldn't. Deon is angry that he had to spend all morning (on his day off!) calling as well just to try and get a good sub in his classroom, which he didn't even get. Deon's teacher and other assistant are angry that they got a sub they don't know who showed up more than an hour after school began. A sub who doesn't know them, the kids, the schedule, or how things are run. A sub who knows these things makes the day go a whole lot smoother for the classroom when a staff member is absent, which is why they have an option to request certain subs in the first place.

I'm not sure if you readers understand this situation at all and why it is so frustrating for me right now, but I just needed to vent my frustrations! I do have other issues with SEMS, but I'll save you the pain and not go into it. But it's days like today I wish I had a permanent position or a completely different job.