Tuesday, May 22, 2018

What Would you say you do Here?

Professor David Graeber presents his findings on the most useless jobs in America. These are:

Compliance Workers
Student Paper Writers
Middle Management
Corporate Lawyer
Telemarketer
Movie Exec
College Admin

We have some experience with that last one, and Herr Professor's description is worth quoting in full:

Over the last several decades, university administration has ballooned insanely — even while the number of teachers and students remain pretty much the same. There are hosts of new provosts, vice chancellors, deans and deanlets and even more, who all now have to be provided with tiny armies of assistants to make them feel important. First they hire them, then they decide what they’re going to do — which is mostly, make up new paperwork to give to teachers and students. As one complained: “Every dean needs his vice dean and sub-dean, and each of them needs a management team, secretaries, admin staff; all of them only there to make it harder for us to teach, to research, to carry out the most basic functions of our jobs.”

At Raritan Valley Community College we had a post called Dean of Multicultural Affairs. A colleague of mine, my crazy Australian professor friend, once speculated about what the dean actually did all day. I mean, how does one be a Dean of Multicultural Affairs?

Adjuncts? Well, we show up at the adjunct dungeon. Log in, check regular and email, chit chat with colleagues, grade papers, enter grades, prep for class, take a few notes, etc etc. Any questions?

In which Will Stroock gets in a John C McGinley clip for the second day in a row

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