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Power Corrupts

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Clarissa

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I just discovered that once you’ve been the boss, irrespective of how much you might have hated it, you can’t be anything else. 

There is this committee that I love and volunteer for every year. Working on it was always a lot of fun. And then last year I volunteered to chair it. I hated it because I’m a shitty leader of people. So this semester I went back to being a regular member. But the enjoyment is gone. Everything seems disorganized and not the way I would have set it up. 

I’ve been corrupted by power and can’t go back to being happy with doing my small share without caring about the result. 

3 responses to “Power Corrupts”

  1. Fie upon this quiet Avatar
    Fie upon this quiet

    I feel the same way. When I was chair of the department, everything was very organized and ran smoothly. When the dean was demoted and became chair, knocking me back to regular faculty, I initially resented it, then embraced the freedom to work on my research. Nonetheless, the current chair does everything in such a chaotic fashion that no one knows what the hell is going on ever. It makes us all very annoyed, and I am constantly thinking that even though I don’t want to be chair anymore that I did the job better.

    The truth is, I didn’t really do the job better per se. All I did was stay on task and organized. The former dean knows more about the ins and outs of the university. But his resulting cynicism makes him not even try in situations in which I’d bend over backwards trying. He’s probably smarter. He works less hard and isn’t disappointed when things don’t work out since he never expected anything to work in the first place.

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  2. Tal Hartsfeld Avatar
    Tal Hartsfeld

    The “Centipede’s Dilemma” syndrome.
    You’ve become too self-conscious of what was previously “under the radar”.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Exactly.

      It’s easier not to know.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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