[Humour] Have you stopped giving a toss?

Harry Wilson's tackle said:

Sadly we are overrun with administrators. I have spent 3 months trying to sort out a PhD studentship with around 10 different people in charge of different aspects (programme approval, funding approval, contracts) of paperwork only to find that all the changes in the badly written draft I requested to be fixed weren't made. I pointed out that the title of the project is not in English. Turns out my modeler collaborator has had no access to college emails for 3 months. And nobody noticed. Turns out also that mentioning that something isn't in English (along with some other comments such as 'this isn't so much a PhD project as a technical exercise' along with good suggestions for resolution) is 'offensive'. Well, f*** that.

Separately we have an important requirement to manage students who appeal their degree result, or the outcome of a disciplinary hearing. This is all managed by administrators. They send repeated emails asking for volunteers to sit on the ad hoc committees. When we reply we are sent an automatic passive-aggressive reply saying they will 'endeavour' (big Morse fans, obviously) to reply in a week. Then they send more hand-wringy emails about need for volunteers. I commented that it would help if they turned their permanent 'out of office' message off and actually managed the process by replying to individuals in a timely and efficient manner. I was accused of being abusive (in a reply that was sent more than seven days after my email). I tried to explain the difference between a reasonable degree of exasperation and abuse. I have yet to receive a reply. Apparently these people are very busy. My job is research and teaching - a rather unimportant aspect of university activity today, it would seem.

Deluded entitled ****s the lot of them.

That said, as I get older I may actually be mellowing. Twenty years ago was sent tomfoolery (inviting me to explore new college web pages on upscaling student experience fulfillment quality assurance, or somesuch bolleaux). I asked why I should do this and they invited me to explore the New college fulfillment experience directorate web page to find out why. I responded with 'am I here for your benefit or are you here for mine?'. I was sent an email demanding an apology, ccd to the Principle of the University. Christ. My reply was one of those ambiguous constructs, acknowledging their 'extraordinary contribution' etc. They seemed happy with that.

****s.

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