Latest / The SEANC View / State audit finds DMV needs more workers, better pay

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State audit finds DMV needs more workers, better pay · The SEANC View

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Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, the communications director,
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fresh off a vacation, a much-needed vacation, back in the studio with Artis
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Watkins, the executive director of Scenic,
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and Sam Klein, our digital communications specialist slash podcast producer
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slash utility player when we need a host.
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She jumped in and did a great job last week.
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We've got a lot of things to get to this week, and we'll hope to get you out
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here in pretty short order.
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Music.
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You are sun-kissed. You have sun-kissed cheeks. Especially, you see my nose.
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I have a little mark on my nose. Every time I put on sunscreen, my nose explodes.
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Well, it looks like you had a good time. That's a good thing.
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But anyway, it was a good time. And you guys had a great time in the studio
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last week. I heard the podcast.
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It was a very informative episode.
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I'll say informative. No, it really was a good episode. And we loved having
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Brad here. He educated us on a lot.
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Educated you on education. We cannot get enough education about education because
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it is complicated. Made me cry.
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Did you cry? Yeah, I cried. I laughed. I cried.
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Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, we deal so much with state employee issues.
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And there's like this whole other side that maybe we're not or I'm not as in
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tune with that's happening at our public schools.
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But when you really think about it, the issue's pretty much the same.
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Definitely, especially the benefits. And that's kind of the point of it is we
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have had so many people reach out to us as an organization who work in public
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schools in different capacities who want to be part of Scenic.
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And so we are making the appropriate efforts to make sure by hiring people like
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Brad and doing the kind of extensive education about education that we're doing,
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that we are here to help them.
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And we're looking for ways to find those similarities and to look for ways we can help them as well.
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Absolutely. Yeah. And from what I gathered from Brad's take on everything,
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it seems like there is a lot of interest still in Scenic and looking to join.
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So we're excited about that. Brad's at convocation today. He sent me some pictures.
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He was at one yesterday in Granville County, I think.
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You know, it's wild. All those convocations take place over about a two-week period.
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Unbelievable. Yeah, I think there's like 115 school districts.
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Yeah, and if y'all don't know what a convocation is, it's the one big meeting
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a year usually a school district does right before the students are back.
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And it gets everybody together that works in the schools.
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And I'll give you a little brag. You had the idea that we should start going
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to those things, and we've really made some inroads in the last few years.
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We've appreciated being allowed to come to so many.
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So that's just a follow-up on last week. Any other follow-ups from last week
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before we jump into this week?
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I guess we need to follow up a little bit on the mini budget that was passed last week.
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I did have a question that artists can help me with. So when they spend the
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money on the mini budget, does that take away from the overall money that's
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there for the actual budget if it ever happens?
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It does. Anything you spend takes away from what you've got and what you've got left.
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It's a smaller pie at this point to divide up. among all the people who still want to bite a pie.
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It's going to be very hard for
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state employees or retirees to get anything meaningful out of what's left.
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Yeah, so people on step pay plans, they got essentially raises,
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but they just got what they would get on their step plan for the next year,
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right? I mean, for a step up.
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Right. They know their pay will adjust at least as much as the step.
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So that was a given, but anything beyond that is going to be...
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You can freeze the steps.
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They're not... Oh, really? Yeah, they're not a given. So, I mean,
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at least I've seen it happen before.
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You know, the legislature can pretty much do anything they want to do.
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And I am concerned, though.
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I'm concerned about what's left and then what the federal budget that was passed
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last month, the pressures that puts on states.
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We did talk a little last week about how
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the League of Municipalities and the County Commissioners Association put out
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the results of a survey they had done of local government and that local governments
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were fully intending for the vast majority of them to give good raises above
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3% for a cost of living and then in many cases merit on top of that.
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Last week, Suzanne said, I heard her say that some legislators were saying that
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this mini budget will help them get to a full budget quicker,
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while others were saying it may be April before we even visit that again.
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Yeah, I really don't. I don't know how it solves the issues they're stuck on,
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which are how they want the tax plan to look like moving forward,
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how quickly they want those reductions to take place.
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And, you know, they keep saying, well, they're kind of stuck on the issue of state employee raises.
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Well, you're getting less stuck if you spend all this money before you even
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address them. I mean, many budgets are great when you're in them.
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Yeah. And we've been in that spot before where we were prioritized. We were included.
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We were put in that many budget. And those were good times. That's not this year, though.
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And don't get me wrong. I'm not by any means am I putting this on the Republicans
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controlling the legislature because I've been getting that a lot.
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These Republicans, they're not giving us anything. Well, let's break that down.
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The House passed a House budget a couple months ago, and most Democrats voted
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for that thing. And it gave good raises.
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They did a good job. Good, good raises were proposed in that for teachers.
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But no one else in the school systems working or no one else in state government
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working, nor the retirees, got anything meaningful.
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And a huge gulf between what most state employees would get and teachers.
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So Democrats and Republicans voted for that. So there was no one prioritizing
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state employees, to be clear.
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No one. So this isn't a partisan issue. This is a politician issue.
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Each politician individually needs to be called by you because nobody,
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nobody is putting you first.
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And they're each going to blame each other to a degree because that's politics.
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But you need to know the facts. There is no group that's been out there publicly
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saying, we have to do at least as well.
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We need at least equal for everybody.
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Let's whatever money we've got, let's be equal about it. And you've heard that
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from both sides in the past.
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You're not hearing it this year. So make no mistake, the way people become a
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priority down there is by being heard from.
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Yeah. And we have a button in the scoop each week for you to reach out to your
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legislators and let them know that you're still here.
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You still need a raise. you still need a cost of living adjustment.
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Yeah. Oh, and by the way, some people will hear this and think,
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oh, Artis, you're so silly.
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The House Democrats were just, that wasn't really how they feel by voting with that.
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They voted with that to put that pressure on Senate Republicans and to get House
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and Senate Republicans fighting with each other, to which I respond,
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I don't care why they did it. It could be a game. Yeah.
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That makes it a little worse to me because the public statement of that vote
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is the same, whether you intended it to be some kind of game or whether you just don't care.
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I didn't understand the strategery of that move either.
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Like, it seems like they gave a lot of ground up from siding with a House budget
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that includes the money for the scholarship. Yeah, it didn't cover what their stated priorities are.
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But that's why Scenic's got a very long track record at this point of being
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nonpartisan and literally taking every House and Senate member one by one in
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terms of who we throw our support behind because it's not about party.
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Honestly, you will find individuals who do care about the state employees or
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retirees in their district.
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And you'll find others that simply don't. And you have to support the people who support you.
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And Scenic does believe that. Moving to this week's news so far.
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It is Tuesday, by the way, so we are recording a little early this week.
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But already we have some major news about state government in the form of State
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Auditor Dave Bullock's audit of the Division of Motor Vehicles,
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DMV, which he had promised on the campaign trail.
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And he did produce this week a 435-page report that was created by 20 people in his office.
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And it largely found what we've been talking about for the last two years in
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this podcast studio, that we need more DMV workers and they need to be paid better.
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Yeah, and we've been talking about it publicly for a minimum of 10. Yeah.
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Well, it goes back to when Pat McCrory ran for governor. So we're talking over 10 years ago.
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He ran largely on a platform of we've got to fix this DMV because he said he
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went to DMV and he was so appalled by how long it took.
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And, you know, the bad attitudes he felt that, you know, he was receiving from
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people and he wanted to have one of his first things as governor be to reform this mess.
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And he did end up spending a lot of money or suggesting a lot of spending, but not on people.
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Modernization. Yeah, on adding hours, you know, and having Saturdays where we
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would open and then some IT things around modernization and trying to change the culture.
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And in fact, in his February State of the State in 2015, he said the DMV now
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has a culture that treats people like customers.
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So as of February 2015, we had all this solved. Yeah.
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Except you're not going to have a DMV staff that treats people like customers
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as much of the time as it should happen.
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You can never have 100%. But you can't have people treating people like customers
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and treating them properly when they're so mistreated.
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Yeah. It's not going to happen. It's just not realistic or logical.
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Sure, it would be nice. Sure, feeling respected in terms of your compensation
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and having enough coworkers to get the job done.
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Shouldn't be a prerequisite for treating people decently. But as Auditor Bullock
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pointed out in his report, the employees at DMV are treated in many times,
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not just disrespectfully, but treated with violence from the public.
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And the public's frustration boils over sometimes.
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So when you're treated with that and you don't have enough co-workers and you've
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been telling anybody who would listen, your past leaders have been telling anybody
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that would listen that you need more co-workers and you can't keep the ones
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you've got because nobody's getting paid enough?
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What do you think you're going to get? So it'd be amusing if it wasn't so serious,
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this DMV thing, because we've been talking, obviously, since at least 2012,
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this has been a huge issue for politicians.
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Yeah, and I didn't mean to be flipping about the report.
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You know, kudos to him for making that statement that we do need more folks
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and we need to pay them better. It seems like to me, the major takeaway that
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I'm seeing from this press conference yesterday may just be kind of burying the lead.
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Like, I look at, I guess, the insider story here.
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First sentence, the largest issue identified by the audit of the troubled DMV
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is its governance structure.
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It seems like everyone's pointing to the part where Bolick said that we should
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take DMV out of DOT and make it its own agency. Mm-hmm.
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So the issue there is the auditor's office pointed out that DMV brings in,
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because it's fee-supported, brings in more money than it gets out of the DOT budget.
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Well, we used to have things in the General Assembly that reviewed exactly that kind of issue.
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It was called the Program Evaluation Division, and it was disbanded in 2021.
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It was there for exactly that kind of reason. An agency needs to be called in
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and questioned about this stuff.
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It's as easy as that. And then the legislators who are elected by the people
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as a body from all over the state.
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To determine the direction. Yes, determine if there's a problem.
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And then, trust me, when legislators tell you, having worked for an agency and
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gone down to the legislature,
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if they tell you there's a problem, they don't like your answers,
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you darn sure will get the situation
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resolved to where your answers can be exactly what they need to be.
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So how do you feel about, I guess, the Highway Patrol just was separated from
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DPS and doing something? I think it's too ill-defined.
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I mean, a standalone agency, and then there were three examples given in the
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audit of other standalone agencies, and one of those in a financial audit was
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found to have had problems.
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I went to the auditor's website, went to the most recent financial audit,
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and I thought, okay, well, I don't think you really want to do that, have it look like that.
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But it's so ill-defined that it makes me feel like it's trying to,
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once again, trot down this privatization road, which has been very openly discussed
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by legislators in the last few years. And it's the oldest song in the book.
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You know, every time there's a problem, well, let's privatize.
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But again, let's go back to 2012, Pat McCrory saying, this is an issue and I'm going to fix it.
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And then all these years have passed. And again, multiple times,
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the legislature's been told, we don't have enough people, and we're not paying
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them enough. And it's not just DMV.
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That's the one people know is government. Some things they don't know, it's the government.
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That's the one they interact with. Yeah. But if their newborn's not getting
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screening in an appropriate time frame after birth, they don't know that has
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anything to do with DHHS inability to staff because salaries are not appropriate.
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But they know DMV is the government, and they have to interact with that.
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But I feel like where DMV is put is not the issue.
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And if you think it is, that's easily enough solved. Pull that agency into the
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General Assembly to answer questions on exactly why are those figures,
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why do they seem to be a discrepancy, rather than, well, we're just going to move it.
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Because that does not solve the reason we're in this mess.
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We're in this mess because for decades, our population has grown exponentially,
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and we have not given DMV positions commensurate with that increase in population.
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We simply have not. We've given them a fraction of that.
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And I know that part of what I've been reading today was the strangest part
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to me was that, well, the General Assembly didn't know DMV needed that amount
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of positions because DOT didn't tell them.
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Wayne Goodwin, the former commissioner, I've sat in meetings at the General
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Assembly where he told them exactly how many he needed. So I'm so confused by that.
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But it seems like some of the media actually thinks that's a thing.
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Like whether or not it was in the official DOT request to the appropriations
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chairs, it was literally all over the media how many they needed.
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And it was something Wayne Goodwin talked about to legislators in testimony
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before the legislature. or so.
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It would be ridiculous for us to claim now that we did not know we needed a
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lot more people in DMV. It would just,
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be ridiculous. So the News & Observer story says that the General Assembly had
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not authorized the DMV to hire additional driver's license examiners since 2003,
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even as the state grew by almost 2.5 million residents.
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That's really hard to believe. I guess it's true, but wow, that's what,
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22 years we haven't added?
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I mean, I believe it. Okay. I mean, I wish I didn't believe it,
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but it's been cut, cut, cut has been the mentality.
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And again, this is not a Republican thing.
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This is Republicans and Democrats have choked out DMV. So be clear on this.
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Yeah. So this winter, we've talked about a little bit, the DMV asked for 61
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additional people to fill holes.
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And Governor Josh Stein passed that request along.
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And last week, lawmakers included it in the spending bill they sent to Stein.
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So I guess the mini budget.
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Which is still a lot less people than Wayne Goodwin was asking for in the last few years.
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So how do we magically all of a sudden need less people? I mean,
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everyone knows we need more people.
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You can go to any DMV and you can know we need more people.
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But it's like you said in an interview earlier with a news outlet that asked about this subject.
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We need people in a lot of places, not just DMV. I mean, we need it in prisons.
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We need folks all over state government.
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And even if you hired them, if you don't increase those salaries,
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you're not keeping them. You stay in a perpetual problem.
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This retention issue, which we've talked about ad nauseum, like I just feel
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like that's all we've said for five years. We can't retain people.
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So that means we desperately need to recruit more, but we can't recruit more
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because we don't pay enough.
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We're in a loop we can't get out of. The problem is, again, this loop affects North Carolinians
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every single day, and oftentimes they don't know why something bad's happening in their life.
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But it's frankly that their public employee positions aren't being funded appropriately.
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So it's frustrating, to say the least. But that's the issue.
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You could hire a bunch of DMV folks today. They're not going to stay at the
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salaries that we give right now.
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Especially given the pressures on the job and the anger that you see from folks
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every day. You know, speaking of which, I did see on Twitter that the assistant
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basketball coach at NC State is having quite a day at the DMV.
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He says he's been there. I guess it's kind of been a running thing all day.
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And he's been there about eight hours.
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And I guess he went and bought some donuts for the staff there. Yeah, I read that.
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And I know he's just being funny or whatever, but that's not really helpful
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for his fellow state employees.
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Yeah, I mean, donuts are nice, but paying your bills is better.
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And it's not, you know, the assistant basketball coach at NC State can't do
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anything about the salaries.
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What he can do, though, if you hear this, Brandon Chambers, what would be awesome
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is for your experience to become something as a fellow state employee.
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We're quick to fund basketball programs, and we've got all kinds of outside ways to do that, too.
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Alumni are going to hop in and we'll fund those things because they matter to us.
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We have to fund the core services the way we fund sports. That would be awesome.
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Yeah. And then, you know, because I hate he had to spend a whole day at the DMV. I hate that.
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Maybe he can come and testify as a consumer. Right. I mean, it got a lot of attention.
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The sad thing is the attention will largely focus the comments on social media
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will start being the same old, same old, which is, yeah, the employees, they're stink.
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Yeah, pretty much. You know, but we're back. We're back to not paying enough.
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And what kind of people are you going to get? So when taxpayers, if you just ask a friend,
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who's not in state government or anywhere, doesn't know anybody in state government.
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Should we pay state workers?
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What should we pay them? They're probably telling you the very least we can.
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That's exactly what we need. We have to be careful with our tax dollars.
19:01
Well, you can do that. And it's just like if you hire somebody at your house,
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if you hire the very least you can find to pay, you might get lucky,
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but you're probably going to get what you paid for.
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So if we have so few tax dollars, why do we keep cutting taxes?
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That's a whole other issue. A whole other discussion. What you do with the taxes
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you bring in is what matters.
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Yeah, and I think you get what you pay for in all facets of life.
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So I think we had, like I said, last week was a long episode.
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We'll give these folks a short episode this week. I think that's about all that's
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really on my mind. How about you, Artis? I mean, being that it's Tuesday.
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Yeah. So far, so good. Now it's time for the Gen Z minute of the week.
19:43
Yeah, so I don't really have anything big this week, but I did find an article
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that kind of has just some top Gen Z statistics for employers in 2025.
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So I thought we'd just run through a couple of those.
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So the number one that they pointed out was that 77% of Gen Z prioritize work-life
20:01
balance, which we have discussed before.
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It's very important to a lot of Gen Zs. What does that mean?
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What does work-life balance mean? You want more time off or you want to work
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from home? No, it's more necessarily separating their work and personal life,
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like when they are at the office and when they are committed to putting in their
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hours that they are committed to.
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They're there when they're at home. They're not checking emails.
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They're not checking phone calls for work. Do you think that means they don't
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want work to define them or you don't work?
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I think so, because I think it also kind of includes there's been a new trend
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that I noticed when I was doing my research today of micro retirements.
20:41
Oh, my gosh. What is that? Where it's not just Gen Z doing this,
20:46
I don't think. It's become more and more of a trend, kind of like quiet quitting
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and other things like that.
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But it's more of taking sabbaticals and taking like a year off.
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Oh, for goodness. Okay. Or months at a time.
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All right. You people need some problems. Come on now.
21:02
But it also could be I didn't see a lot about it.
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It could be that people are just saying, oh, I'm changing to a new job or a
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new role. and instead of... How does anybody do that?
21:13
How do your bills not happen for a year? I don't get that. I was raised with
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a you have to have at least six months of like all your bills saved up.
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So you want to, if that's what you believe, you can't spend it to just hang
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out. You have it for an emergency.
21:26
Yeah, but... I'm not doing a micro-retirement. I don't know.
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I'm just trying to figure it out. You speak for the Gen A, Gen Z.
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I know. It might be some of the people who live in vans and like to do the van
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life kind of stuff. They're just instead of...
21:40
I really question where they get stats like this.
21:43
I mean, I'm not questioning your research or anything, but, like,
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you always see things like this.
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Like, oh, people just like to
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chill. Yeah, as old folks, we try to be very open to these Gen Z moments.
21:53
I think you can tell you just— I'm a little bit lost by the micro-retirement thing, too. Yeah.
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I understand that. Because how could you possibly have that kind of savings
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sitting around, but then say you can't put a down payment on a house? Stop it. Exactly.
22:07
And I think your generation, our generation, we're all. It's very important to John to just.
22:13
No, I was worried about that. That's why I said.
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No, but I think I mean, like a big part of why, you know, I have to work all
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the time. I always have to have a job is because of health insurance. Right. Yeah.
22:26
Oh, that's America. Yeah. So how are these people getting health insurance?
22:30
I do not. Well, when you're young,
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maybe you can roll those dice a little easier, but not if you're me.
22:36
Yeah. I mean, depending on the person, but. Yeah. What other stat do you have?
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Also with the micro retirement thing, like I said, I didn't do a lot of research into it.
22:45
Maybe it's partially like a Gen Z's feel like they're never going to be able
22:49
to retire. Oh, stop. Neither do me.
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So they're kind of just like, fine, I'll take many retirements throughout my life working.
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I don't know. I don't know. What else is on this list?
23:01
Some of the other ones were that currently we make up 30% of the world's population
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and are expected to take up 27% of the workforce by 2030.
23:10
That one's interesting to me because it seems like you'd make 30% up now if
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you're 30% of the population, right?
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Because you're working. Well, not all of us are graduated from college.
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We're not getting, you know, like extended.
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I'm on the older end of Gen Z. Like graduate degrees. Some of them are in medical school till they're.
23:27
But doesn't it also kind of point out that people are working longer?
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Like boomers are still in those jobs and not turning. Well, again,
23:34
because nobody feels like they can retire.
23:36
Yeah. I mean. And they're living longer. Yeah. Everyone's living longer.
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And any of us in the world who were on 401ks are watching it be the most.
23:44
Yeah. And no one's on a pension. And be the most unpredictable thing ever.
23:47
The last thing you can do is just go, I'm just going to go live off of this for three months.
23:52
70% of Gen Zers prioritize pay slash salary as a top aspect they want from their next job.
23:59
I think that's common across the board, pretty much.
24:03
I feel like that's a pretty common benefits and pay are usually common things
24:07
that people look at whenever.
24:08
We are still seeing, though, the studies that have been done of people who want public jobs.
24:13
It surprised me how many of the young people did care about the benefits.
24:16
Yeah. I think I would think that. I didn't think any of y'all would care,
24:19
but apparently it's a larger number than you would think.
24:21
I think even I would take maybe a lower salary if it had better, you know, like.
24:26
Yeah, to go and do it over again and go to state government and stay there so
24:30
you can. Yeah, especially if I got in before January 2021 and had health insurance
24:35
when I retired. That's a big one. It's huge. Yeah.
24:39
And then there are some also some just strange statistics in here that I don't
24:43
completely understand how they relate to Gen Z in the workforce.
24:48
But like one of them is only 45 percent of Gen Zs describe their mental health
24:53
as excellent or very good.
24:55
Well, I think that's probably, I mean, I think it carries over into the workplace.
24:59
But I think we've talked about this a number of times.
25:01
I don't know how y'all are dealing with the world. I mean, the world just didn't
25:05
look like this when we were your age.
25:07
And it's harder to be hopeful, I think.
25:10
I don't know how any of us are dealing with it. And the last one that I thought
25:15
was kind of interesting, only 41% of Gen Zers expect to own a home in one day.
25:19
It's kind of sad to think about. But, well, that's factual.
25:23
Yeah. Private equity is buying them up. Yeah. Yeah. So they can rent them to
25:27
you. Kind of crazy. Yeah, I don't want that.
25:29
Well, then you have to elect folks who don't like that either. A lot of headache.
25:35
I don't know. I could deal with renting the rest of my life.
25:37
I mean, I don't now. Well, no.
25:38
I mean, you can't deal with it as private equity starts to buy it all up. Yeah.
25:43
And then they make your rent to where you can't afford it. I get calls like
25:47
once or twice a week from somebody trying to buy my house. Sure.
25:50
Oh, yeah. My parents get those all the time.
25:52
Because my parents also look at me and they're like, Sammy, we have 10 acres of land.
25:56
Nice house. they live well. My rent is their mortgage. Yeah. Isn't that something?
26:01
Yeah. Actually, my rent's a little more than their mortgage.
26:04
Yeah. I mean, that's reality. It's bad.
26:07
And my parents were happy that I got my rent at what I did because I can't pay more.
26:12
Well, and that's a very real thing. And we talk about that with regard to public
26:15
employees a lot, particularly because there are a lot of public employees and
26:21
you're going to have more public employees,
26:23
state and city county, in your larger areas, Wake and Mecklenburg and places like that.
26:28
Yeah. And the cost of living, cost of housing and stuff like that in those counties
26:32
is atrocious. Yeah. Yeah.
26:35
So those are just a couple of things that I thought were interesting in that.
26:39
Cool beans. That was a good, random, simple topic. But yeah,
26:41
I enjoyed that from time to time.
26:43
All right. We're going to wrap up with the question of the week.
26:46
And since it's back to school time, sort of, my daughter goes back like next
26:50
Friday, August 15th. That seems really early to me.
26:53
Didn't we go back like the last week in August or? I didn't.
26:57
I used to be like very early August.
27:00
And Brenda Williams was saying her grandkids start tomorrow.
27:04
So I guess, I don't know. I think they stagger it a little bit now.
27:07
Yeah. So in honor of back to school time. Do we want to do your theme song? Oh, yeah. Hit me.
27:13
Hit me. John Swacky Weird Question of the Week.
27:14
Music.
27:19
Can't forget the theme song. Is that Bo Burnham singing that? Or is it?
27:25
No, I wish it was. That's just an AI voice. It sounds like they made that AI
27:29
voice from him, though. It could be. I don't know. Maybe they based it off of him.
27:33
But my question this week is, who is your favorite teacher? Anyone have any
27:38
favorite teachers growing up?
27:40
Lots. How far back do I need to go? Any teacher, professor, anything.
27:45
Mine was Mr. Weeks. He was my journalism teacher in high school,
27:50
and he taught me how to do newspapering and how to love newspapering.
27:55
And so I learned a lot from him that I just, you know, when I went to college,
28:00
I was a little ahead of the game just working with him because he was a former reporter.
28:05
So that was my guy, Jeff Weeks. He passed away, too, a few years ago.
28:11
So but, yeah, that's mine. So anyone?
28:15
I'm going to say it was my AP U.S. history teacher slash AP European history
28:21
teacher, junior and senior year of high school, Miss Barrier.
28:25
Shout out to Miss Barrier. She still works at Gray's Creek. Yay. Hey, Miss Barrier.
28:31
She was great. She was amazing. She cared so much about all of her students,
28:36
and she just made everyone feel so welcome, which is one of the reasons I took
28:39
AP European history my senior year, because I wanted to have her as a teacher
28:43
again. That scene seems kind of difficult.
28:45
It does. No, it was fun. Did you get credit for it?
28:49
I didn't get credit for any of my AP classes in high school.
28:52
I don't think anybody in my high school ever got AP classes. It was so hard.
28:55
The AP exams were so hard. Anyway.
28:59
Then you needed to have Sylvia White, who was my AP English teacher at Broughton. Oh.
29:04
And anybody who had Sylvia White, Ms. White, they could tell you.
29:08
She would get you prepared.
29:11
And I know this for a fact because I started the year with her saying,
29:15
I mean, my papers would be nothing but red. It just looked like an autopsy.
29:20
And she said, there's no way. I mean, you just would get maybe a one out of five on this thing.
29:25
And by the end of the year, she had me ready, got a five on that thing, got the credit.
29:31
She was that good. But she took the time with everybody. Central theme here,
29:35
I think, of our teachers.
29:37
So, so many more. I can name honorable mention to Jeff Richardson,
29:40
J.R., who ran the band at Broughton for years.
29:43
But, yeah. Hey, I was in band, too. What'd you play?
29:46
Clarinet, nothing exciting. Oh, I play the trombone. I think that kind of shows,
29:49
though, the effect that teachers have on students.
29:52
Because we think about the ones that we built personal and actual good relationships
29:57
with first before we think about, oh, this one taught me a lot but did not like me. True.
30:04
I mean, I think for the most part, when I look back, I was very blessed.
30:08
Most of my teachers seemed pretty invested in us as people, wanted us to be
30:13
good people and do good things and enjoy it. I think a lot of people feel like
30:17
they were blessed to have a good teacher without really even recognizing it, you know?
30:23
Yeah. And if you look back, you know, if you look at your kids' teachers,
30:27
probably feel that way about them as well.
30:29
I mean, I feel like my kids had good teachers.
30:32
Yeah. I feel like I definitely had some teachers who I was just like,
30:36
we just don't, personalities didn't match. Sure, that's going to happen.
30:40
Who got along with those teachers great. It was fine, but just did not mesh at all.
30:46
A lot of me. And there were some teachers I wanted to send red back on their
30:50
comments because, you know, I don't want to see, you know, you got to hold teachers
30:56
to a higher standard in terms of misspellings and stuff like that.
30:58
But that was rare, honestly, with my kids looking back.
31:02
It was, for the most part, really good people who I could never do what they did. I'll tell you that.
31:08
No patience. Well, that's a good note to end on.
31:11
Good luck as you start the new year, teachers and students. Yay.
31:15
We'll have a new show for you next week.
31:18
Music.