DLSE effed up again, but is that really news?

Once again [no news here], the DLSE is having to justify incompetent people placed in positions of disservice to the public. Vicky Bradshaw kicks her minion John Rea, who kicks his minion Lupe Almaraz, who kicks his minion David Dorame. This is the same David Dorame who was previously protected and sheltered by Jose Millan, but we all know what happened to Jose Millan & his batch of groupies making illegal propaganda videos for the Governator. So now that Dorame is no longer protected by Millan, he's left to twist in the wind.

These are bits from Susan Ferriss' article from the Sacramento Bee, published on Monday the 24th of April: in 2004, DLSE conducted 5,796 investigations that contained 113 overtime and 81 minimum wage citations. The EEEC task force created by the Governator, Vicky Bradshaw and her pretards issued 9-12 overtime or minimum wage citations in 205 'sweeps,' word play for 'investigations.' $5,500,000 for this EEEC task force that has 55 employees, pulled mainly from other areas & departments. $5.5 million, in exchange for Dean Fryer's excuse making, once again, as to why his agency flunkies are currently still conducting audits on businesses investigated yet audits not completed and subsequent citations not issued. Don't worry folks, he said that updates with detailed explanations are coming soon! Where have we heard that before?

Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood) hit the nail right on the head; the EEEC crew picks the low-hanging fruit, like issuing workers compensation citations, but the really hard stuff is best left to someone else, like no one assigned to the EEEC! What Paul needs to understand is that the Executive Pretards hand-picked the middle management pretards, who then selected those invitation-only employees to join the EEEC. Now, the DLSE is desperately trying to add another layer of middle management to the EEEC. Lupe Almaraz wants a Deputy Labor Commissioner IV in between him (Deputy Chief) and David Dorame (Deputy Labor Commissioner III). Adding another layer of incompetence will not fix the problem. Not only do they not know the answers, but they don't have a handle on the questions. But then again, this is what makes the desk monkeys so special! If we can't fix the problem with 3 monkeys, well then the problem can certainly be solved with four monkeys! Who took that logics class?

Long Beach Wage Claim Office all messed up, Diana Chen playing dress-up

In keeping with the Long Beach Wage Claim Office always trying to make things impossible for the People of California, Victor Jurado and his crew told a Claimant that he had to take the subpoenas that he wanted served [on his employer] over to the Santa Ana office so that the Santa Ana Wage Claim Office could type and return them to the Claimant for proper service of process. Now, this poor citizen lives extremely close to the Long Beach office, and the Santa Ana Office is back-logged with cases (and the Long Beach office has no backlog), so some cases assigned to Santa Ana are sent to be heard in Long Beach. In this case, the Long Beach office is going to hear his case, which is why he was over there! The poor guy goes to the Long Beach office to get the subpoenas processed, and then Long Beach tells him to go back to the Santa Ana office so that they can type and return them. Their rationale? The claim was filed with the Santa Ana office. Never mind that there is no policy coming from Abigael Calva (Regional Manager) or Nance Steffen (Assistant Cheif) on these issues, it's just one small example of an office passing the buck to another office, and who gets screwed? You're right, that California citizen who must now jump through that hoop arbitrarily decided by some other bureaucrat even though there's no policy in place to justify such a directive. Nice job, Victor, way to help out the People of California.

So Chen gets to play dress-up for a couple of days while she and two others interview for open positions. I'm sure that she's very excited at acquiring another state employee that must do her bidding. It's too bad that the potential employee isn't allowed to see her complaint history resume, as that might affect the decision to accept the state's employment offer. Who really wants to work for a tattle-tale, complaint writer that spends her time bitching about toaster ovens and electrical sockets? I mean, really. Word on the street is that Chen wants to go back to the Los Angeles office, but no one wants her there! That means the Santa Ana office is stuck with her.

Dropping like flies

DLSE staff are either leaving or retiring. Word on the street is that supervisors King Cheung and Robert Sweet are leaving. There's a Hearing Officer in Van Nuys who will be retiring soon, and Wage Claim Deputies in Los Angeles & Santa Ana will be leaving state service. Also rumored to be leaving the DLSE is Maria de la Rocha, who will (hopefully very soon) be at the federal Dept. of Labor. Good riddance.

The Van Nuys Hearing officer that's considering retirement is a great person and is a valuable asset to serving the People of California, and so is the person that's the Sanata Ana office. Rumor has it that the BoFE vacancy in Los Angeles (created by King Cheung's departure) might have Diana Chen leaving Santa Ana and being transferred to Los Angeles. This works out best for the People of California, as less taxes are being wasted for her commute time (it's a shorter commute to/from Los Angeles than her office in Santa Ana). Funny how taxes are being squandered for a supervisor to travel from home to work and vice versa. The last time I checked, probationary supervisors should be on their best behavior so they pass their probation; that means 8 hours work for 8 hours pay. Since she's become the Number One COMPLAINER in the Santa Ana office, many of those in Santa Ana are accutely aware of when she arrives and when she leaves. No one will come forward and complain (because her boss Susan Nakagama won't do anything), but conversely, no one will lie under oath if subpoenaed and asked if they've ever observed her habitually coming in late and leaving early.

The beauty of this blog is that DLSE management reads it and has knowledge of its existence. So if they ever bothered to take the time to ascertain the truth, they could (very easily) pull their heads out of the sand, open their eyes, and start to figure it out. It's too bad that truth has little meaning to some of them, as they are often quick to state, "I don't know, I can't recall, or I don't remember."

If anyone has an concern with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, ask to speak to Supervisor Diana Chen

That's right, America. If you, the public, has any type of issue with the way that the DLSE performs its functions that come out of the Santa Ana office, just contact Senior Deputy Labor Commissioner Diana Chen. She will gladly take your complaint and send an email to her bosses and possibly the bosses of other state employees who she does not supervise.

In the event that a complaint she possesses cannot hold enough water, she might fabricate details to give the complaint more weight. In fact, when she complains on her own, she fabricates her own details to make sure that her voice is heard louder than those who make contradict her (this is an old DLSE trick often used by career bureaucrats). Never mind the fact supervisor Chen's inconsistencies are shown to be false, since nothing will be done to her little "embellishments." America, it's important to understand that Susan Nakagama and Greg Rupp approved of her promotion, so any poor observations of Diana Chen would also reflect on the poor selection made by Susan Nakagama and Greg Rupp, and that is just not going to happen.
How does this affect proper and efficient service to the public? Diana Chen spends more time worying about the placement of office furniture than trying to learn the job that she is paid to do. Diana Chen spends more time complaining about nothing than servicing the public. Diana Chen seems to spend vasts amounts of time trying to solidify her complaints about other office employees than trying to help the public. In the end, her complaints fall on deaf ears because there is no merit to those complaints, but all that time, energy, and resource has been wasted. What she has done in the interim was weaken office morale, and any idiot with an MBA can tell you what morale can do to the operational efficiency of any office (not that Diana's boss, Susan Nakagama, has a degree from anything, except maybe from Gardena High School and even that is uncertain). Now that Diana Chen is a thrice-repeated tattle-tale, every office employee must carefully guard what they say, lest she be hiding around the corner in an attempt to eavesdrop. It really does not matter what other employees say, as Diana Chen will misquote and misconstrue as the message is passed from Diana to Susan. In the end, the public is jammed up because the powers-that-be put the square peg in the round hole for the next 30 years. With our luck, she'll get promoted just like Susan Nakagama and Greg Rupp did.