It's been snowing here.
A. LOT.
A lot for Portland, not that much for people that are from other places where it snows.
Snow, ice and bad weather mixed with a school means making tough decisions around closing, staying open, and the fall out from either scenario.
One way that people like me cut down on the stress factor is to follow the big guys. I personally am a huge fan of following the public schools, because a lot of my families will also have school aged children, and therefore already be inconvenienced in a way that is so big and comprehensive, that they wont make too much of a fuss.
If I was the queen of the world, I would make a blanket policy and just follow the schools, but alas I am not the queen of the world, I am me, and I work for people and stuff and I have to use some discretion. I used such discretion in December and opened on time, when Portland Public opened late. I won that time, because the snow never really manifested.
WIN!
Hooray!
Last Thursday, Portland Public waited until 10:37am to call it a day, and such down business by 1:00pm. My team of teachers did a beautiful job of closing our operation down and everyone got picked up mostly on time and I felt really great. We closed the next day, as it was clearly a mess.
Last night the issue was right in our faces again. There was still ice and snow on the ground. To close or not to close? Portland Public called it at 7:30pm. I talked to my boss, ate some penne, thought about my staff that have school aged children, thought about the ones that live an hour away and ultimately decided to close.
I personally would prefer to be open.
I don't like disruption in my routines and I don't like the grumble from people that are pissed off by closures, but at the end of the day, it just felt unethical to make my staff drive in the slush and ice. If anyone got hurt, or wrecked their car, I would feel like a creep.
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