My phone rang at 4:40 AM on Monday. In my experience, predawn phone calls are (A) a wrong number from a drunk or another time zone or (B) really really really bad news. I managed to get awake enough to see the caller ID and the winner is… WTF??!!! (C) the school system that I work for! Teachers are never really off the job, but this is ridiculous.

Our county office recently installed a computerized calling system. It is intended to be used to notify us of emergency situations. (Hurricane season starts tomorrow!) School principals can also use it to call parents or staff for special activities and such. Since the school year ended last week and I am technically unemployed for the next two months, I let it go to voicemail and went back to sleep.

Later that morning I listened to the message. There was a break-in at one of the middle schools. It was supposed to be sent only to a small group of principals (presumably at a later time). Apparently it went to just about everyone in the database including parents. Oops! When the local news got ahold of the story later that day someone from the county office indicated that it was human error. That means that (A) no one will ever ever ever take responsibility for it or (B) they will blame some clerk that had the task dumped on them by the person that really should be responsible.

You gotta love the system….

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