Yale Protest Brings Results

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Clarissa

November 17, 2015

Yale protests have culminated in the administration allocating $50,000,000 to. . . expanding the administration. For comparison’s sake, this amount would suffice to fund 100% for half a century my entire department that teaches seven different languages.

Yale Corporation is incredibly rich, so who cares if it blows this amount on expanding its bureaucracy? The problem is that once the tradition sets in of having all of these endless inclusion centers and diversity seminars, everybody begins to be forced into the same administrative patterns. And university like mine already has to treasure every 5 bucks it has (literally!). Taking away even more resources from actual education can be ruinous.

What’s annoying is that once again black students who are in actual need of the education we provide will be short-changed to make a bunch of rich kids at Yale feel important.

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4 responses to “Yale Protest Brings Results”

Sternococktail

November 17, 2015

Must read, must know for the younger generation – if you haven’t discovered them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law

http://www.economist.com/node/14116121 — etc.

There are more laws describing bureaucracies
Parkinson’s law of triviality
Hofstadter’s law
Jevons paradox
List of eponymous laws
Peter Principle
Snackwell effect
Student syndrome
Time management
Time to completion
Murphy’s law
Induced demand

But it really is in vain to study this – because you can never beat bureaucracies –
– it’s like wrestling with a giant snail or slug.
Fiction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Room_(Strindberg_novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblomov

Humor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_from_the_Ministry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(U.S.TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office(UK_TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(1995_TV_series)

“/—/ two motive forces. They can be represented for the present purpose by two almost axiomatic statements, thus:
Factor I.—An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals; and
Factor II.—Officials make work for each other.
We must now examine these motive forces in turn.

The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates
To comprehend Factor I, we must picture a civil servant called A who finds himself overworked. Whether this overwork is real or imaginary is immaterial; but we should observe, in passing, that A’s sensation (or illusion) might easily result from his own decreasing energy—a normal symptom of middle-age. For this real or imagined overwork there are, broadly speaking, three possible remedies
(1) He may resign.
(2) He may ask to halve the work with a colleague called B.
(3) He may demand the assistance of two subordinates, to be called C and D.
There is probably no instance in civil service history of A choosing any but the third alternative. By resignation he would lose his pension rights. By having B appointed, on his own level in the hierarchy, he would merely bring in a rival for promotion to W’s vacancy when W (at long last) retires. So A would rather have C and D, junior men, below him. They will add to his consequence; and, by dividing the work into two categories, as between C and D, he will have the merit of being the only man who comprehends them both. /—/”
http://www.economist.com/node/14116121

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1. Clarissa
  
  November 17, 2015
  
  Brilliant, thank you!
  
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2. cliff arroyo
  
  November 18, 2015
  
  I would add Power! by Michael Korda as a great resource for understanding how workplaces/bureaucracies function.
  
  He’s supposedly distanced himself from it (it was a joke! let’s laugh at my funny joke!) but I’ve personally seen almost every scenario he describes play itself out multiple times and it’s been a great aid for me in helping me achieve my goal of not being bothered by others’ bullshit at work (ie. how to stay out of the scrum and still do okay).
  
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Bob Basil

November 17, 2015

Such a grotesquerie.

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