Dear fellow members of the Columbia Community,
This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. For almost a decade now, I’ve just smiled and nodded whenever President Bollinger made me write these new appointment letters. The man never gave me so much as a thank you. I mean, a secretary has some clerical duties, but come on now.
Anyways, this new guy. He’s the new dean of something or other. Does it really matter? Will you, the Columbia community, be affected in any way if the new Vice Dean of Undergraduate Programs is William McCambridge or Michelle Groomsbridge? Of course not. They’re just bureaucratic cogs in this massive, unwieldy machine, sucking up precious resources that could otherwise be used to properly compensate your professors, TAs, secretaries like myself, and the thousands of other employees that keep this behemoth running on a day-to-day basis.
This new guy’s employment history is just as impressive as anyone else’s – which is to say, just impressive enough. They worked at institutions whose names carry moderate to significant weight, all appropriate to the new position of this person, and appropriate to the purported prestige of this institution. He served at some other, slightly lower ranked university for a few years in a similar position, and now he’s here. He’s a fellow at some association or another, and has contributed occasionally to national publications that don’t reek of partisanship.
All of these prior positions make him extremely well-suited to push paperwork around while feigning commitment to some aspect of this institution despite blatant prioritization of their own careers. Heck, he might even have his secretary write you an email proudly announcing some new program or another that he thinks will look good to alumni.
However, he does have one truly remarkable qualification: making it through PrezBo’s selection process. The President picks between seven and ten likely candidates, invites them to campus under the pretense of an interview. However, instead of leading them into the pool of cash that is Lee’s office/playroom, I must lead them into the University’s tunnel system. Those tunnels were never shuttered; they were repurposed into a hunger games-esque arena, where the candidates must fight to the death for the position – and PrezBo’s entertainment. While I dislike writing these letters, the worst part of my job is undoubtedly when I must don the “ceremonial garb” (basically just a gimp suit) and feed a reclining Lee Bollinger grapes off the vine as he watches these mid-level administrators brutalize one another.
So anyways, enjoy your new, bloodsoaked Dean of something or other. He certainly earned the position. It sounds like PrezBo has started to get bored with the fresh stack of bills I tossed in his money pit, so I should finish this up. Good luck, you poor souls.
SECRETARY OUT
