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2019-12-03 Paperwork versus real work

People who learn about TNKR believe that Eunkoo Lee and I complement each other well. It isn't true. Even now, we battle about many things. We have had to come up with a clear division of labor.

* I make the big decisions about TNKR's vision and mission.
* She controls the budget and does the paperwork.



I came to the TNKR office yesterday evening after six hours of teaching public speaking. As soon as I sat down, Eunkoo was trying to get me to sign paperwork. Certificates for tutors. Paperwork that must be submitted to partner organizations.

Eunkoo has the hard part. She is responsible for mountains of paperwork. The partner organizations don't allow us to just email these documents, we (Eunkoo) must keep track of them, then everything must be signed and submitted. She has been great at identifying grants to support activities--but the result is that she has more paperwork to confirm we are in compliance.

My role? Sign everything. I'm even grumpy about that, having to sign 102 documents yesterday. And I didn't even have my good pen available at the moment.

The real reason I am grumpy? I know there are some times that we end up doing things not because they make sense, but because we need to be in compliance with grants from partner organizations.


People see the glamorous side of hosting events and activities with North Korean refugees, but it isn't all real work. There is also a lot of paperwork that wastes a lot of time but is needed for partner organizations.

Perhaps the day will come that we will have other staff responsible for the paperwork so we can focus on real work.

***

My negative mood quickly dissipated. A North Korean refugee came by to visit. I was interviewing her in preparation for starting Track 3 next year. You will be hearing about a lot about her in less than three weeks.

  

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