The state of California campus systems have job position guidelines. HR units on each campus will use those to set campus standards for hiring and for job evaluations, called desk audits. One staff member thought he qualified for being a TV Engineer. He currently held the position of Equipment Technician III. He was told by HR that only one TV Engineer was allowed on any state campus. That is in the state documents.

The bad: after he retired, he found out the following in an e-mail from a campus union representative: “As to the one per campus, X campus has had as many as three and so has XY campus. As you should know by now these campuses do what they want unless some one stops them.”

Also, it is stated that TV Engineer positions must have an FCC license (the staff member did have the FCC license but the campus TV Engineer, allegedly, did not). Some have the license, some don’t. The lesson learned is that the state job position guidelines can be used against you for reclassification. If you are friends with an administrator they are in fact arbitrary in the right situations.