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British university administration
May. 19th, 2016 08:37 pmAt work I am very conscious of the degree to which I am shielded from school and university-wide administration by our overworked project administrator and their friends. I still see some of it myself: for instance, if I want intra-campus mail to be sure to arrive within a couple of weeks, I hand-deliver it rather than entrusting it to the mail system. An early lesson was on buying textbooks and other smaller items: with our group's grants we can't just order from Amazon, we have to go through central procurement who use university-approved suppliers who largely take considerable time to determine they can't supply what we need, or if they do the internal overhead it costs is obscene. This has been ongoing: for instance, this month the coffee machine in the kitchen died. A division head can't get it replaced: probably in July the matter will come before the university chancellor (assuming I heard correctly) so people around our building are instead simply donating their own money for a replacement.
( the plumbing's unreliable )
( furniture is also an issue ) I was naturally reminded of my previous workplace which featured a variety of chairs and not an eyebrow raised when I had them provide me a further chair unlike any of the others. But, they differed in instead tending to prioritize whatever helped us to actually achieve the institution's raison d'être.
This isn't just our own university though. For instance, earlier this week a colleague at a well-known English institution had, via said a/v equipment, a videoconference with us from outdoors, praying that the rain held off, because they appear not be able to provide him access to a quiet room indoors for the purpose. He also couldn't get a suitable headset from his university so we arranged one for him.
( and new computers are a bother )
Are most British universities administrated by inept idiots? In total it must be an enormous waste of time and money. I feel like we get our work done despite the institutional support. In the meantime I am grateful that, thanks to the significant efforts of others, my group is a bubble of relative sanity in the larger sea of, well, something that perhaps should just be taken outside and put out of its misery.
( the plumbing's unreliable )
( furniture is also an issue ) I was naturally reminded of my previous workplace which featured a variety of chairs and not an eyebrow raised when I had them provide me a further chair unlike any of the others. But, they differed in instead tending to prioritize whatever helped us to actually achieve the institution's raison d'être.
This isn't just our own university though. For instance, earlier this week a colleague at a well-known English institution had, via said a/v equipment, a videoconference with us from outdoors, praying that the rain held off, because they appear not be able to provide him access to a quiet room indoors for the purpose. He also couldn't get a suitable headset from his university so we arranged one for him.
( and new computers are a bother )
Are most British universities administrated by inept idiots? In total it must be an enormous waste of time and money. I feel like we get our work done despite the institutional support. In the meantime I am grateful that, thanks to the significant efforts of others, my group is a bubble of relative sanity in the larger sea of, well, something that perhaps should just be taken outside and put out of its misery.
