It's OK--Nobody Reads This Stuff

Last week, a friend posted a picture on her Facebook wall--actually, a screen shot from another Facebook wall. It showed the following status message:

"OMG I HATE MY JOB!! My boss is a total pervvy ****er always making me do *** stuff just to **** me off! ****ER!!!"

The boss posted the following comment:

"Hi. I guess you forgot about adding me on here? Firstly, don't flatter yourself. Secondly, you've worked here 5 months and didn't work out that I'm gay? I know I don't prance around the office like a queen, but it's not exactly a secret. Thirdly, that '*** stuff' is called your 'job', you know, what I pay you to do. But the fact that you seem able to **** up the simplest of tasks might contribute to how you feel about it. And lastly, you also seem to have forgotten that you have 2 weeks left on your 6 month trial period. Don't bother coming in tomorrow. . . . And yes, I'm serious."

Sure, we all appreciate the young lady's comeuppance. Our appreciation arises, though, not so much from the young lady's obnoxiousness--for all we know, her boss really is a "pervvy ***er" [sic]--but rather from her monumental stupidity: trashing her boss on a semi-public forum, TO WHICH SHE HAS PREVIOUSLY INVITED HER BOSS!

Note the key phrase in the boss's reply, though: "You also seem to have forgotten that you have 2 weeks left on your 6 month trial period." This obviates any potentially touchy legal issues. Sure, we understand why her boss fires her, but honestly, she could have been fired for much less--for nothing, in fact.

Life imitates. . . well, life (assuming the Facebook post is real). The National Labor Relations Board has filed suit against American Medical Response of Connecticut, an ambulance company, after the company fired an employee, ostensibly for making disparaging comments about her supervisor on Facebook. The NLRB claims the post and the ensuing commentary by other employees constitute protected speech; the company claims the employee was fired for multiple reasons, only one of which was the "negative personal attacks [DIGRESSION: As opposed to "positive" personal attacks? EOD] against a co-worker posted publicly on Facebook." Indeed, the employee's wrath arose in part from AMR's requiring her to prepare a response to a customer's complaint about her work. She hardly comes across as a model employee.

The case does raise interesting questions, though, about how protected one's speech is. Isn't bitching about the boss a time-honored American (and Russian, and German, and Australian. . . . ) tradition? Many a sitcom gag revolves around a hapless employee venting at the water-cooler while his interlocutors roll their eyes, raise their eyebrows, and engage in all manner of pantomime to warn the speaker that, "MR. MCELROY IS STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!!" Is there something about the utilization of the social network that aggravates the offense?

Well, yes, insofar as the social network is a public medium. While it may be acceptable to vent to one's fellow workers about an annoying boss, what happens when other "Friends" read the post and get the wrong (or, who knows? right) idea about the company? If we were the management, we would be less upset by the employee's feelings--or even the fact of her publication--than by the tone: We wouldn't want the public to think some vulgarian represented our company. More to the point, while we defend to the death the employee's right to have her opinions, and even to share them in a proper forum, we would--as in the case of the employee mentioned at the beginning of this post--question her judgment. Someone stupid enough to post her personal vitriol where anyone can see it must accept the consequences of her actions.

In closing--and apropos of nothing--let us just say how much we love Solipsist Community College and all the people who work there, particularly President W. and Vice-President M. and Dean K. We couldn't ask for a better bunch of colleagues, friends--dare we say, surrogate family members and veritable soulmates to make our days bright, our nights warm, and our dusks crepuscular. Why, these people are just the salt of the earth, and we resolve here and now to name any future sons, daughters, or pets after the exemplary faculty and staff of this truly idyllic workplace, the likes of which. . . . .

Degrees of Disagreement

The three-hour meeting about SB1440 began at 8:30 this morning and ended early, at 12:15. At issue: How to adjust curricular requirements to conform to the newly-enacted legislation, which mandates that community colleges design degrees that will allow students to transfer easily to 4-year state colleges and that state colleges automatically accept these students as juniors. The legislation itself poses no insurmountable challenges for either the community or state college system; indeed, in the end, it will likely simplify things for community-college students.

Problems arise, however, when individual colleges must choose between keeping their traditional degree requirements and conforming to the new legislation. The question is not whether they WILL comply. That's, y'know, the LAW. The main question under discussion today revolved around whether colleges could continue offering, in addition to the transfer degrees, degrees with DIFFERENT requirements than those mandated by the law.

What gets us crazy is when meetings turn into marathon discussions around what are fundamentally simple questions. Take the above question, for example (please!): CAN colleges continue offering alternative paths to an associates degree? Of course they can! WILL those alternative degrees prove acceptable to four-year colleges? Of course they won't! Why, then, would a student choose to TAKE pursue one of those degrees? Aha!

In fairness, there ARE legitimate reasons for students to pursue those non-transferable degrees (for example, vocationally oriented majors that train students for the workplace as opposed to more "academic" majors). The sad fact is, though, that this reform, like so many others, may flounder on the shoals of departmental self-interest.

The politics work like this: When a course is no longer required for a degree, the department offering that course worries (not unjustifiably) that students will no longer enroll in that course. If the department loses enrollment, it may lose institutional support. Thus, departments will fight to keep as many courses as possible "in the loop" for transferability. If and when it becomes apparent that the state legislation leaves no room for a particular course in its list of requirements, these departments will then advocate for maintaining the course as a LOCAL requirement for an ALTERNATIVE associates degree (one that will not actually serve a transferring student). No problem, really, if a student has no interest in transferring. Until they DO have an interest in transferring and find out that their locally designed associates is only slightly more valuable than Enron stock.

We realize this discussion may prove opaque to those not affiliated with the California Community College system, and we apologize. You'll just have to take our word for it when we assure you that we have provided a perfect example of how bureaucracy and inertia continue to trump common sense.

Some Pseudo-philosophical Rambling

So you have a job.  And you want to do that job to the best of your ability.  You arrive on time.  You work the whole day.  You take a short lunch.  You complete all your tasks thoroughly and professionally.  And you do this five days a week, fifty weeks a year (two-weeks off for vacation), for ten, twenty, thirty, FORTY years.  And then you retire.  And then someone else takes your place and it just goes on and on and on.

The question the Solipsist is pondering today is, When are you done?  That is, not so much, When are you done.  That takes care of itself through death, retirement, or occasionally indictment.  But when are you done?  It occurred to us today that virtually all jobs are cyclical in nature.  They just go on and on, onward into the future, and when one cog (i.e., person) moves on, another just takes its place.  This isn't meant to be depressing, although we'll admit it is; rather, it's sort of a philosophical question: At what point can you slap your hands together and say, "All done"?

It really makes us envy movie stars--and not for the obvious reasons.  When a movie star (or even an extra) finishes a movie, that movie is done!  It's in the can!  Finito!  How many of us get to experience the same sense of completion at our jobs?  Sure, we teachers enter our final grades at the end of the term, but then there's a whole 'nother class waiting 'round the summer break with the SAME problems as that class we just finished!  When one report is completed, it only raises questions that a subsequent report will need to answer.  How many things does your average president accomplish completely?  (Well, actually, GWB did manage to utterly gut several precepts of individual liberty, as well as demolish America's image abroad, so, y'know, Bravo, Mr. Bush!)

The point, dear Sloppists, is, take pleasure in your small accomplishments.  In the end, that's probably about all you'll be able to look back on and honestly say, "Well done!"

Bergeron's World

In 1961, Kurt Vonnegut published "Harrison Bergeron."  In this story, America has become a politically correct nightmare society: Everyone is equal.  And, unlike the pigs in Animal Farm, no one is more equal than others.  To ensure this, anyone with above-average qualities is hobbled by the authorities.  The strong are forced to wear heavily-weighted boots and other impedimenta, so as to bring them down to a baseline level; the eponymous protagonist's father, a man of above-average intelligence, is subjected to jarring noises sent through an earpiece so as to prevent him from forming dangerously intellectual ideas.

But in this world where no one is allowed to rise above anyone else, the one who must be most forcefully pushed down is Harrison Bergeron:

"Nobody had ever borne heavier handicaps. . . .  Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. . . . Scrap metal was hung all over him. . . . In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds."

The reason for such handicaps becomes apparent when Harrison sheds his extra baggage on national television.  The audience sees standing before it a god among men: incredibly strong, unfathomably graceful, unbearably handsome.  Before Harrison can complete his revolution, though, he is struck down by a shotgun blast from the "Handicapper General."  The story is set in the year 2081.

Vonnegut was off by a few decades.

The Solipsist was reminded of "Harrison Bergeron" today.  A bit of background:  YNSHC works at a college and chairs a committee charged with developing programs to assist students in need of skills development.  At the moment, while the rest of the economy is crashing and burning, this committee finds itself in the odd position of having lots of money to spend.  The only catch is that the money must be spent by the end of June, or the college must return it.

Well, this real-life "Brewster's Millions" scenario is not too bad.  In fact, this committee had a perfect use for these one-time funds: We would purchase a very high-class software system that provides instructional support in math, reading, and writing, to students ranging in ability from elementary school all the way up through junior college.  English teachers loved it.  Math teachers loved it.  Administrators loved it.

Of course, there was a catch.

The Solipsist was told today by the office for students with disabilities that the program was not "508 compliant."  "508" refers to the section of the federal code that deals with people with disabilities.  Essentially, it says that any organization that receives ANY federal money (which is just about ANY public institution) must ensure that all services are accessible to all people, regardless of disability.

OK.  Seems reasonable as far as it goes.  So what's wrong with this piece of software?

Well, people with visual impairments wouldn't be able to use it.

But, the program has a feature that will actually read the text on screen out loud.

Well, yes, but a blind person wouldn't be able to position the cursor over the icon to turn on the "voice" without assistance.

!!!!!

So, to sum up: This software program, which would potentially benefit almost every student at the college--including the VAST majority of students with disabilities--is verboten because a relative handful of students MIGHT have difficulty using it.

In what universe does this make sense?

Understand, the Solipsist is all for access.  He believes that everyone should have the opportunity to get an education regardless of age, race, sex, ethnicity, or disability!  

(Digression: Height's another story: The short can drop dead for all YNSHC is concerned!  End of digression.)

But how does it help the visually impaired that the college is not able to purchase this software--which may even BECOME compliant with the legislation before too much longer?  Isn't this cutting off the nose to spite the face?  Not even Harrison Bergeron had to cut off his nose!

Office Politics

The self-employed do not have to deal with office politics. Nor, generally, do people who work with only one other person--the practically self-employed. In those situations, generally one person is the acknowledged superior and the other the acknowledged inferior. This is how marriages work. But once a workplace has three or more people, it has become a de facto society. And politics are society's fuel.

And the more members of a society, the more politics there are. This is not a comment on the TYPE of politics (vicious, collegial, etc.), merely on the amount. That is, if we define politics as the "use of intrigue or strategy in obtaining any position of power or control, as in business, university, etc." (http://www.dictionary.com/), then the number of strategies occurring at any given time rises directly (if not exponentially) with the number of people in a given society.

Case in point, the Solipsist has the opportunity to observe politcal interactions firsthand on a day-t0-day basis. The industry is not relevant, merely that it meets our definition of a workplace society. For simplicity's sake, let's just say the Solipsist is intimately familiar with the goings on at a widget factory. In the last hour alone, the following acts of politics occurred:

--At a meeting of the Basic-Widget Department, the head of the division reported that the parent company--Amalgamated Widgets, Cogs, and Gizmos--was demanding a rigorous accounting of the exact times at which each widget's thingamabob was installed on the whatsis. No matter that there had been no major complaints on the finished widgets' performance.

--At this same meeting, the issue was raised that the Deluxe Widget Department was upset at the Basic Widget staff, who were taking it upon themselves to assist in the polishing of Deluxe Widgets. It should go without saying that widget-polishing is a skill that all widget artisans possess, and that a well-polished widget will shine no matter who does the polishing.

--Finally, the heads of the Basic, Deluxe, and International-Standard Widgets Departments are wrestling with the Facilities Manager, who is concerned that each department's widget-manufacturing activities occur at slightly different and not always overlapping times. This creates issues around securing the factory at the end of the day.

When looked at from a global perspective, what is striking is the utter simplicity of the possible solutions. If each widget-making department simply worked on producing widgets, cooperating when necessary, concentrating on achieving the best results when not, then no problems would exist and fine widgets would pour forth consistently. Instead, efficiency suffers because of each individual department's political concerns.

Can anything be done? Yes and no. Man is a political animal. But it helps to remember that politics is always means, never an end.