Need Some Good Energy from my Peeps!

[Ales2]

Sealnyx - Yoru second post describing more about the environment explains everything. I've been in that environment too, but probably with alot less seniority - but still, I get the politics of that. Sorry. Thats a really tough place to be.  Sounds like your email was well recieved, meaning no harm done. I really wish you the best in this situation.

Seastorm - your list of what large scale organizations do is amazing accurate. Thanks for sharing that, even if its sad. You really should right an article about American Corporate culture and how its killing us. I learned that the only way to get anywhere is just be bottom line focused and make sure management knows that about the work I do. I was always at work for all the wrong reasons, and therefore yielded the wrong results.  Also, loved your observations about hiring the "pleaser" uh....that WAS me....no more.

All the best to you,
Alesia

 

[sKePTiKal]

I find this type of culture most depressing in higher education - where one expects, and the "party-line" says - that individual effort is rewarded. The hypocrisy drips... and yes, tt: most people, when being honest, admit that they are aware of the reality of what goes on in their institutions. Some stay because they're close to retirement; the health care is cadillac and in truth, raises are suspiciously given - just high enough; just often enough - to keep the people pleasers and workhorses enslaved. It really is as if they've never read Dickens, Seastorm! (Perhaps he's not fashionable anymore?? Like human nature ever really changes??)

But, as bad a picture as can be painted, it is still possible to do the right thing, to positively impact individuals, to count coup on the small victories when they do happen - and to cherish the relationships made despite ALL of the negativity, the entropy, the idiocy.

Sealynx: Set your boundaries; protect yourself; use the benefits you do have to enrich your life (not just to manage the stress)... and realize: it's just a job.

[Sealynx]

Hi PR and TT,
Good response to TT, PR. I wrote a letter to my Dean, which I did not feel the need to send, just get off my chest. You see, the class I teach includes chapters on Morality. Among other things mentioned in the letter, I made the point that students are required to study material that we as an institution neither believe in nor practice. So why do we mislead them into believing it.

Like PR I think there are many reasons why people don't look too hard at the morality of any institution. We go to church on Sunday and support whatever our company comes up with on Monday. Look at what is going on in my home state of Louisiana right now. In spite of seeing our state bird, the brown Pelican, covered in oil and dying by the thousands, our state senators are begging Washington to restore drilling to a gulf so polluted that it will never sustain our fishing industry again. They want to believe that things can simply go on as they were rather than pulling back to see that change is needed.

Just as we could be using the money that BP will pay us to invite clean future oriented industry to our state, the people I work  would rather close their eyes to to obvious immorality of what is being done and see it as just a new policy. They are essentially saying, the system is stepping on me a the moment so I don't want to risk this nice perch I have!

As PR noted, if I refuse to get involved in the larger culture and restrict myself to the enjoyable part, like seeing young people grow and work toward their dreams, then I can survive by taking my creative ideas to sources outside of education. The current culture encourages innovation only to take the product and eat the creative person behind it alive.

[Sealynx]

Thanks Ales,
Sea did a great job! I laugh when we talk about how American innovation is falling behind that of Japan and other countries. That is because so many our institutions have abused us so badly that we no longer want to "throw our pearls to swine." They've moved to places like Japan which actually has a word for being "worked to death". Sooner or later they will come to understand that the value they put on honorable work is being exploited and their productivity will fall as well. I don't think this will stop until it has circled the globe and touched every culture that either has a strong work ethic or desperately needs the money, like what is happening to Walmart workers in China right now.  Maybe we should wise up and start preaching the way things are on Sunday rather than how we pretend they are.
S

[seastorm]

Sea,

Yes, it is amazing how silent people are about this issue.There is a corporate narcissism that is doing the things that our Ns did to us.
The kids are lucky to have a prof that cares as much as you do.

Some say that narcissism is evil and in the big picture it is. Always choosing to follow the bottom line and the dollar is no way for an institution to survive and thrive. Eventually,the lack of a moral compass brings things to such a state of sterility that they crumble. Universities in BC are having a rough time surviving and are having to change because of the times.

I wonder how you survive? Obviously by saying no to this IT job. Good luck to you. I am sure it is not easy or nurturing to feel that you have to strategize to survive.

Hugs,

Seastorm

[sKePTiKal]

The current culture encourages innovation only to take the product and eat the creative person behind it alive.

This needs to be sent to the Chronicle of Higher Ed or posted on their blog, where people might be tempted to say what's on their minds. When that dull roar becomes loud enough - and large enough - perhaps someone will pay attention and put these institutions on notice (maybe accrediting agencies??) that these so-called "internal" issues are now going to be examined in the light of day - just as any other questionable labor practice would be.

[BonesMS]

The current culture encourages innovation only to take the product and eat the creative person behind it alive.

This needs to be sent to the Chronicle of Higher Ed or posted on their blog, where people might be tempted to say what's on their minds. When that dull roar becomes loud enough - and large enough - perhaps someone will pay attention and put these institutions on notice (maybe accrediting agencies??) that these so-called "internal" issues are now going to be examined in the light of day - just as any other questionable labor practice would be.

If it could happen to Gallaudet University after the Fernandes mess, it can happen to other higher educational institutions that act unethical.

Bones

[Hopalong]

My favorite higher-Ed story:
Just a few years ago, the head of HR at this institution was finally dealt with. Keep in mind as you think about him, that his position was responsible for administrating all non-discrimination policies, including EEO, sexual harrassment, bias issues, etc. Welll this good ole boy was a relentless sexual harrasser, told attractive women to "get on my couch after you close the door", at one point bullied a pregnant employee so badly that she wound up sobbing on the floor of her cubicle, and after 9/11, went around the office showing people the most violent, loathsome video games on their PCs while braying about "killing all the ragheads" (although he had several employees of Middle Eastern origin), more sexism, more bullying, more racism, etc... Too many anecdotes to tell.

Finally, a small group of women took some sort of legal action or grievance. What did the institution do? He had to go, clearly, there were too many affadavits for them to get away with promoting or keeping him. THEY SENT HIM TO ANOTHER STATE INSTITUTION WITH GLOWING REFERENCES (these became publically available, and they did glow) -- where he...drumroll...is head of HR, in charge of the same policies he so egregiously violated over and over and over...

And years earlier, an incompetent Medical Center administrator who used state helicopters to go on golfing excursions when he wasn't holed up in a hotel at the coast with cocaine and prostitutes...when his behavior was complained about, he was promoted, of course. Became a VP, stayed until retirement, huge pension...

I know so many similar stories. It's just staggering.

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Sort of reminds me of the Vatican, Hops - just transfer them away from the people "in the know" and the "problem" will disappear....


SIGH. The source of the "corporate narcissism" in these institutions isn't with the offenders themselves; rather it's the people overlooking & not dealing with the issues/offenders... or protecting them... or using them. At the root of the issue at the top, is that they simply can't/don't deal with these kinds of issues (take no responsibility and simply don't care) - they take a hands-off attitude claiming they don't want to interfere or micromanage - despite evidence completely to the contrary in other aspects of mundane day to day business.

[Sealynx]

The best hospital narcissism story I ever heard was during Katrina. As doctors waited on a rooftop for helicopters to lift critically ill patients to safety they were amazed to be held back as the first birds air lifted not the sick, but the sick of being there executives who had been forced to stay during the storm!!!