By Professor Doom
It really is
interesting how the other half lives, particularly when it comes to the Poo
Bahs who rule over our institutions. Their lives are just so…different. I worry
about losing my job, because that would be a major problem for me.
I want to move
closer to my university, but it’s a major risk: I’m not exactly paid enough to
buy a house near the place, so if I lose my job soon after moving, I’ll be
really hurt, financially. It’s a big
gamble.
Poo Bahs don’t
worry about such mundane things. I’ve mentioned before how, when a Poo Bah is
fired, he gets a fat check no matter how horrible he or she did the job. Over
the course of even a wildly incompetent career, a Poo Bah can rake in a
$1,000,000 or more just by getting fired repeatedly.
But that’s not
why Poo Bahs don’t worry about buying a house, because the institution actually
provides a house for them. I’ve been to administrative palaces, and these
residences are magnificent. I grant
that I’m not much for interior decorating, my personal style is basically “late
20th century cardboard box” but the interior (and exterior) of an
administrative mansion is gorgeous. The reason why these amazing homes have such beautiful decoration is because, like the house, the Poo Bah doesn’t actually
pay for it.
As luck would
have it, a Poo Bah’s residence
is for sale. Let’s look at some of the features these guys get, courtesy
of the tax dollars provided via the student loan scam:
The 7,600-square-foot
home…
Wow. Every house/apartment
I’ve lived in my entire life, put together, doesn’t add up to that square
footage. Perhaps I haven’t moved around as much as others, but that’s one huge
house. The decadence continues:
five
bedrooms, six bathrooms, two half-baths…
What is wrong with these people? Have any of my
gentle readers ever lived in a place with more bathrooms than bedrooms, and two
half-baths to share? To be in a house where half a dozen people can
simultaneously take individual showers is pretty nuts.
Why is the house
on sale? Well, the Poo Bah got into a bit of a scandal, seeing as the
university blew nearly $1,000,000 on renovations of the palace. Goodness, I
have something of an imagination, but I’m hard pressed to think of how to spend
that kind of money, just on decorations. If I ruled over a university and had
that much of the university’s money to blow on whatever I wanted, I’d have
spent it on scholarships and continued to use a cardboard box as a coffee
table….there I go again, thinking like an educator, it’s probably why I’ll
never be a Poo Bah.
One strange
decoration drew particular ire:
A $556
olive jar in Scarborough's bedroom became a flashpoint for students and
employees upset at the cost of renovations at a time when 161 employees lost
their jobs.
The olive jar is
actually a planter (so no actual olives—I could see the cost justified if
filled with olives, I guess). The planter
is dun and not covered in gold foil or anything. I’ve seen
the like at Wal-Mart for around 1/10 of the price…and I still can’t justify
spending my own money on such a thing. I get by with cardboard boxes well
enough.
Anyway, the
scandal of tossing such a huge sum of money away while over a hundred employees
had to be fired for lack of money, among other issues, caused the Poo Bah to
resign in disgrace, but no, the gentle readers need not feel much in the way of
pity. As always, a golden parachute awaits the Poo Bah:
Hey, want to be ticked off some more? That
$450,000 award for being fired comes after less
than two years of “service.” It
must be so sweet living the lives of the 1%. I’ve put a decade into an
institution and got nothing on the way out, and I suspect many of my readers
get the same treatment. Did I mention this is at a public university? Our students are going into debt for this.
As Poo Bah you
get the use of a free house, luxuriously renovated, and a half-million dollar
check when you’re fired. Just do that every two years, and you’d be pretty set
after a handful of years, right?
Once a Poo Bah
moves out, a new Poo Bah comes in. Mercifully, this institution did things a
bit differently:
It’s amazing how
things work for these guys. The university actually hires a search firm (paying tens
of thousands of dollars) to get candidates, and makes a national search to find
“the right person.” After the list of names is put together, a bunch of 6-figure
administrators spend a great deal of time in interviews and parties deciding
who will be the best. Then the new Poo Bah is anointed.
And time and
again, these guys get fired after a handful of years, grabbing a golden
parachute on the way out.
The university
this time decided to be clever (amazing!) and hire someone besides another
wandering plunderer who’ll ride off in a few years, saddlebags stuffed with
loot. This time they decided to pick someone from inside the institution. I
hope it works out; at least there’s some reason to believe it’ll be someone who
actually cares a little for the place.
Too bad most
administrative positions aren’t normally chosen so sanely.
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