Thank You Sir May I Have Another

I've worked in many different organizations - big, small, corporate, non-profit, the military and so on. But my current place of employment wins hands down as far as having an endless succession of pointless and non-productive meetings. The academic world likes to pride itself on faculty governance - the notion that the faculty, consisting of wise and benevolent individuals with only everyone's best interests in mind, will be responsible for making all major decisions.

In reality, it seldom if ever works out that way. Faculty meetings quickly degenerate into a who-can-yell-the-loudest contest. I've seen pre-schoolers resolve problems with less fuss. (Definition of a faculty meeting: “Wasting an hour or more in a high-volume discussion about unresolved issues that remain unresolved.”)

The number and fruitlessness of meetings, combined with detached-from-reality administrative pronouncements (the latest: our Monday/Wednesday classes are being rescheduled to Mon./Wed./Fri. because the president felt that the number of empty classrooms on Fridays indicated we were underutilizing our facilities - no matter that the total number of classroom utilization hours remains unchanged) and clueless students, leads most professors to be on a first-name basis with bartenders and liquor store owners throughout town.

So I was pleasantly surprised to receive the item below in interoffice mail today. The SECC (State Employee Charitable Campaign) is a once-a-year initiative that encourages employees to make charitable contributions. If you donate at a certain level, you get a small token of appreciation.

Since this place drives me to drink (and to paraphrase W.C. Fields, it's the only thing I'm grateful to it for), it seems only fitting that I receive a tool designed to help open cans and bottles.