They Paid How Much?
Gee, I guess city work isn’t so bad after all, if folks are willing to pay over $500 for a non-existant class so they could get non-existant jobs from a manager with no hiring authority.
An assistant manager in the city’s water billing division was in jail Thursday, accused of promising city jobs to at least 22 people in exchange for cash, police said.
Cheryl Jackson, 39, was charged with theft by a public servant, a third-degree felony punishable by a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.
Jackson is accused of using her position to trick job-seekers into giving her money for a non-existent computer class. Jackson told people the class would lead to a job in the city’s Department of Public Works and Engineering, investigators said.
“She had no ability to hire these people,” said Dan McAnulty, an investigator
What amazes me is that anyone was stupid enough to pay. What chaps me is that she makes about 1.5 times what I do.
The city began the process of firing Jackson on Wednesday from her $48,425-a-year job, Johnson said. She was a supervisor in the customer billing office of the public utility division.
To the best of my information, she was in the information technology section of that branch, which at least made it sound plausible that the computer class was linked to a job–to an outsider. (Hint: the city sticks you in the job, then trains you, if you need it. If you’re already an employee and looking for a promotion, you get stuck in the job and later got the title & money, if any.)
Investigators said Jackson met with some of the victims in her office in 4200 Leeland. Most paid $547 for the non-existent class, according to Capt. Ceaser Moore of the Houston Police Department’s burglary and theft division….”I anticipate by the time it goes to the grand jury it will involve a lot more folks,” McAnulty said.
A lot more people will be involved before it’s all over — and some of them may also be city employees. The rumor mill has it that she bilked fellow employees with various scams as well. Talk about pissing in your nest…
UPDATE: KTRK has additional details:
Police say Jackson is an assistant manager in the city’s water billing division and doesn’t even have the authority to hire anyone. Police say when she was questioned on why she did this, she said her husband was unemployed and she did it to take care of him and her four-year-old child.
In 1995, she was sentenced to five years for felony tampering with government records. In 1991, she was sentenced to four years for check forgery. She was released from prison in the summer of 1997 and was hired by the city in March of 1998.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Well there’s your problem:
In 1995, she was sentenced to five years for felony tampering with government records. In 1991, she was sentenced to four years for check forgery. She was released from prison in the summer of 1997 and was hired by the city in March of 1998.
Hey, why not hire a multiply convicted forger as a manager? One convicted of tampering with government records! In a job managing… government records. As they say, BRILLIANT!
September 6th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
The logic behind that does sort of escape me right now.
They said all the PC claptrap about “paid their debt to society” … but you know, fuck that. Bad apples just tend to stay bad. Yeah, there’s the occasional exception — that proves the rule.
Now think about it… she was a manager in an IT section over in Utility Customer Service. This is just more proof that we’re hiring the bottom of the barrel. It becomes a self-perpetuating problem, because who the hell wants to come work with people like that? No doubt someone would argue that if people are willing to pay to get such jobs, I’m wrong about their desirability. I doubt any of those people are in IT.
Why? The draw wasn’t the city job. The draw was Microsoft Certification(tm). That’s a huge plus, and you’re not getting it for a piddling $527. The test fees alone are $100+ each. Courses generally start at around $1500 last I checked, and that was several years ago. No, despite this misleading ad, they’re not free.
Now take a certification and a year or two hands-on experience, even with the city. Oh yes, fools would be falling all over themselves to give their money away. “Heh, I’ll get certified, work for the city a year, and then get a real job!”
That’s why the old saying “you can’t cheat an honest man” is so true. Suckers always think they’re the one doing the suckering until too late.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
[...] I think they’ll be of occasional interest. At the very least, they’ll be mildly diverting. Tomorrow morning, I’ll post the first of these….about the fallout behind the firing of a Utility Customer Service assistant manager who was scamming people. [...]