Time to Put Up or Shut Up

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I had some potentially exciting work-related news coming down the pike. This afternoon, it came to fruition.

I represent seven counties as the District 9 Representative on the Probation Officers Advisory Board. There are about two dozen of us probation officers from all around the state who converge on the Indiana Judicial Center in Indianapolis once a quarter to address issues that affect probation officers across the board, whether they involve training, workload measures, salaries, how we supervise offenders, or anything else that universally affects our profession.

There are two ways to get on the Advisory Board. The first is to be elected by your constituents. You nominate yourself, and if anyone else nominates themselves, there is an election. You can be elected a maximum of two consecutive three-year terms. I have run unopposed both times, and I just completed my first term and am entering my second term.

The other way to get on the Board is to be appointed by the Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. No one argues with the Chief Justice. I suppose you could be appointed endlessly by him.

Regardless of how you get on the Board, it's considered to be a pretty prestigious position.

So I've served on the Board for the past three years. In that time, I was frustrated by a number of things. Without dragging dirty laundry out in front of everyone, there were just a lot of things that were done differently than I thought they should be, given the prestige of the Board. I vented to my boss, who is also my friend and mentor, and who served on the Board a few years ago. I also expressed those thoughts--constructively at first and then less constructively as my frustration grew--to everyone at the Indiana Judicial Center who is involved with the Board. I got no response. I reached a point where I had privately decided not to run for a second term.

But a funny thing happened last fall. I was working on a project with a woman from the Indiana Judicial Center who is involved with the Board, and we got talking about my frustrations with the Board. At the next Board meeting about a month later, another Judicial Center staff member talked to me about my future with the Board. There was talk of reassigning me to a different committee, which I had requested, and that was enough for me to reconsider running for a second term. A couple months later, I spoke with a Judicial Center staff member, who mentioned the possibility of me Chairing a committee. That sounded really cool! I could run a committee the way I wanted to! Pretty exciting!

Then at our April Board meeting, two Judicial Center staff members talked to me to gauge my interest in becoming the Vice Chair of the entire Board. The plan was that the current Vice Chair would replace the outgoing Chair--as is commonly done--and serve the typical two-year term as Chair. Meanwhile, as Vice Chair, I'd learn the ropes, and in two years, I would likely become Chair. Heck yeah, I was interested! I've gone from complete frustration to the doorstep of being the #2 person on the entire Board! Nothing's official yet, I was told, as the Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court still has the final say on appointments and structure of the Board and such. But even if it all fell through, it was really nice to know that the Judicial Center thought enough of me to want me in that position.

I got a call this afternoon from the Judicial Center. Tomorrow afternoon, in front of about 3000 probation officers from all over the State of Indiana, at our Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, the Chief Justice is going to announce me as the Vice Chair of the Probation Officers Advisory Board. He is also going to extend the current Chair's term one more year, and after that one year (instead of the two years we discussed last month), I will likely become the next Chair. I'm not really sure what happened to the current Vice Chair. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity, though. I thought all my complaining fell on deaf ears, but the Judicial Center was apparently listening the entire time. Now I have the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is and orchestrate some positive changes in the Board.

Time for me to put up or shut up.

Maybe now that I'm the Vice Chair, they'll spell my name right on the website.