Great galloping zot! For this year’s annual review, my dean has given me an unheard-of 4.5 on a scale of 4.
What on earth could she be thinking? Whatever it is, let’s not anyone argue.
This is amazing. NO ONE gets a 4. I didn’t know a 4.5 was even possible.
More to the point, it means a) the flap over excising My Bartleby from our staff was not taken unkindly at all, and b) Bartleby’s efforts to undermine me, which were much more extensive than I imagined, failed. Hmmm. It may mean c) She Who Is in Power stays in power. But we’ll try not to think about that one.
In addition to engineering the exit of an incompetent employee, however, and through a couple serendipitous moments, I’ve managed a pair of coups that save my unit money and make my dean look mighty good. After Bartleby left, we proposed to replace her position with a fourth research assistantship. This scheme caused droplets of sweat to fly into the air around our vice-president’s head: an assistantship costs the university around 40 grand, far more than the 16 thou we pay a secretary. (Yes, true: for shame!)
As a place-holder until things could be shouted through and settled out, we hired a 50% FTE (full-time equivalent) hourly worker. For this position, we took on a graduate student who needed an internship in one of the College’s high-profile programs, with the understanding that she would be replaced with an RA in the fall semester.
Meanwhile, one of my existing RAs decided to quit the Ph.D. program, having seen the light and and in the clear white glare viewed…well, what back in the day we used to call sexism. This is a highly entrepreneurial woman who does not suffer fools (or foolishness) gladly, so she decided to walk with the master’s. Well set with a husband who earns more than enough to support her and her offspring, she proposed that I hire her in the 50% FTE hourly position; then the two of us would start working on building our own business on the side.
Hot dang. This is our workhorse RA, a person of exceptional competence and drive who could, in fact, run our office in her sleep. All by her little self. She carries a ridiculous workload as it is and thinks she’s not working very hard.
I now go back to Her Deanship and suggest that we not create a fourth research assistantship at all, but instead convert the hourly job to a 49% FTE editorial assistant. You understand, at 49%, pay is the same as 50% FTE but the university does not have to provide benefits. No health insurance. No pension. No nuthin’. Dance to spring!
What this does: it causes the job to cost the College about 30% less than it would at 50% time.
The deal is done. As soon as my RA finishes her last research unit (she defends in a week or so but will wring the last few pennies out of her assistantship by carrying research credits through the end of the summer), we convert her to an editor and fill her assistantship with a new worthy from said honored program.
Too amazing! Apparently the Dean thought so, too.
Karma is on my side, after all. The flies must have been Her idea of a practical joke.
4 Comments left on iWeb site:
Congratulations!
I always knew you were off the scale!
Thursday, May 29, 2008 – 03:39 PM
Turn One Pound Into One Million
Well done, you obviously did something to deserve it!
Friday, May 30, 2008 – 07:06 AM
What happens when Lady Luck does not smile so favorably?I’m sure you know that in the education industry there is so much backstabbing and cutthroat politics to make even the most die-hard for-profit company CEO blush with shame.Congratulations on your good fortune and your brilliant moves, but I hope you don’t expect that things will always turn out this well.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 – 06:16 PM
Indeed. There was a reason I was concerned about this year’s review. Click on the link to “My Bartleby” for a clue or two or three. Credible word had it that Bartleby had been at the dean’s office complaining about me, on some occasions dispensing wild stories in those and other precincts. At one point, for example, she told a graduate student that she was the director of our office…that would be my job, I’m afraid.
Back-stabbing and vicious politicking are not exclusive to academia. But academics have strong skills in these crafts. The fact that I nailed the woman to the wall and came out with an astronomically high rating should give us some insight into how much “luck” was involved here….
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 – 07:39 PM