Q&A; : County Issue Public Employees’ Workweek

In a bid to save money and reduce vehicular emissions, Ventura County recently adopted a new work schedule in which county offices are open longer Monday through

Thursday but closed on Fridays. After the first week on the shift, county employees were asked: What do you think of the new schedule and how has it affected your life?

* Hugh Clabaugh

Project engineer, Public Works

I think it’s a good schedule. As far as it affecting my life, it really hasn’t. I was working more than the eight-hour day most of the time with the type of job that I have so it really hasn’t affected my life at all. As the day goes on, especially as the week goes on--Wednesday and Thursday--it does wear on you a little bit because you are working the additional two hours. Before, I wasn’t working 10 hours a day, I was maybe working 8 1/2 or nine hours. But with the extra day off, you’re able to come back refreshed. I’m able to get some business done around town and also get some work done at home. I play golf, I play tennis sometimes, I’m doing some projects around the house that it was difficult to do after work. Three days off makes it a lot different. Now that my kids are out of school, I can do things with them on Friday. Most of my clients are contractors, and since they do work on Fridays and I’m off, sometimes I have to be on call in case there are problems in the field. Luckily, that hasn’t happened yet.

* Mary Beth Peterson

Deputy public guardian

It’s long on the four days that we work, but it’s nice on the long weekends, when we have off. It really hasn’t affected me too much. I feel a little tired at the end of the day but the early morning is fine with me. I’m a morning person. (On Friday) I ran all over town spending money running errands. And a lot of the things I did were things that I normally would have had to take time off during the week to do. I think most people feel the same way I do. It’s a little long and you get pretty tired that last hour between 5 and 6 o’clock, but when that day off comes it’s worth it. It does give us extra time, particularly in the morning, to get caught up on paperwork and routine things without the phone interrupting. My sympathy does rest in large part on this with people with small children who have to handle the child care. It is a problem for them to find someone to handle the child care and I do know several people who have had that problem.

* Kathie Briggs

Management assistant, retirement department, treasurer/tax collector’s office It’s a little early to tell, I’m still getting used to the change. I like the weekends off except that it’s still a little hard to get used to the long hours. I find that even though the idea is to take care of your business on Friday when you have the whole day, there are other days of the week when you have to take care of business. Overall I’m being optimistic so far because I feel like we’ve only had one weekend and everybody thinks it’s sort of like we had a holiday. But as the weeks go by I think we’ll start to realize the benefits of it. I think I’m going to like it, it’s just that I’m not a morning person so it’s a little hard to get up early. I’m just getting up and doing my thing. I don’t really look at the clock now, I just get up and try not to let the time on the clock bother me. But my dog notices the time. He doesn’t wake me up or anything anymore. He wonders why I’m up so early.

* John McKinney

Assistant treasurer/tax collector It’s shortened my workweek about six hours, because I was coming in early when we were working five days a week. It’s made the mornings a little busier because people are here right away. We used to come in ahead of them; now they’re here when we get here. As far as getting the work done, it doesn’t seem to have had any impact, people are a little bit more tired toward the end of the week than they were before, but they were very well rested Monday morning, so that part was a plus. I think the public probably, when they become aware, might be more responsive. Right now we’re tracking the number of telephone calls and number of people that we get in before 8 a.m. and after 5 p.m., because we’re open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the front counter, and it’s insignificant. Two telephone calls, two people a day before and after, so it’s like four people are taking advantage of it right now per day. If that gets better in the busy time, then it might be beneficial. But it’s too soon to call it.

* Christine Manson

Deputy public guardian

I think there were some very valid reasons that they adopted this schedule. I think it’s going to help with emissions control in our county, which we certainly need. As it affects my position, I have increased time to work on the amount of paperwork that I have to work on. I like the schedule personally because it will allow me to schedule all of my routine dental appointments, medical appointments, parent-teacher conferences, all of those things. I’m a parent and all of those things can now be scheduled on Fridays, allowing me to be here more during the week to get my work done and to meet the needs of the individuals that I work for. It’s a little bit tiring but for the most part I find it actually quite invigorating, because I like getting things done. The phone doesn’t ring as much between 7 in the morning and 9, or between 4 and 6 in the evening and so I blink and the time is gone, because it allows me so much more uninterrupted processing time and I’m getting so much more done and that’s just a wonderful feeling.