A thankless job is one that no matter what you do, or how well you do it, you get nothing but complaints. It’s a complete and utter soul-killer.
Waking up this morning to an inch of snow made me realize the most thankless job – the person who has to decide to call off school for weather, particularly here in the southeast US, where snow, sleet, and ice bring the city to a grinding halt.
I say this because the snow we got this morning didn’t start falling until about 6:30AM – an hour after the decision was made that school was in session. There will be near-endless complaints from parents about how dangerous it was that we had school.
This is a no-win situation. The decision-maker has to base their decision on data that, according to ForecastAdvisor.com, is anywhere from 45% to 75% accurate. Even assuming the best, you’ve got one chance in four of being wrong. BEven if the forecast is accurate, it’s rarely accurate to the hour, which is the level of precision required to figure out if school should be out. Then there’s the reaction to the decisions:
- If you call off school and weather does happen, there will be areas in your district with weather variations, or a nearby district will make the opposite decision with no ill effect, or people who used to live in snowy areas think it’s nothing, and people will complain.
- If you call off school and weather doesn’t happen, people will complain you wasted a school day, and forced them to take time off from work to care for their kids or spend money to find child care.
- If you don’t call off school and weather does happen, here in the southeast the results can be disastrous. We’re not equipped for winter weather.
No matter what, if you are the unfortunate soul who makes the decision about snow days here in the southeast, prepare to duck and cover. The complaints are coming.