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2 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

I'm awaiting the plot twist that this Professor is actually a long time member of the Pie and Bovril forum and has been saving updates to this thread for use in any future unfair dismissal claim.

Fascinating to see his tactics here of attempting to divide the staff by trying to make them doubt and mistrust each other about what they are agreeing and not agreeing with this guy in private. Prevents any one of his opponents feeling on strong enough grounds to actually challenge him successfully. Few will stick their necks out for fear they can't trust their colleagues to publicly back them when push comes to shove. Classical F.U.D. tactics in action.

At 60-odd this guy clearly has nothing to lose. Nobody will sack him. Nobody can force him to do anything he doesn't want to do. The interesting question here is who is going to risk their career to bring this guy down? Whose ego is bruised enough to risk that?

There's only going to be one sacking, and it ain't the Prof!

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3 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

I said that last week.

I would be walking away from this right now and refusing to get emotionally invested in it. I would take the attitude that I didn't hire him and this guy is not my problem to fix. If he wants to coast to retirement then there's nothing I can do to stop that. I already suggested under-employing the guy. If that didn't work, that would be the end of my battle.

Got to pick your fights wisely. Avoiding making enemies is a key skill.

It would be annoying having to cover his workload though, without compensation.

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12 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

There's only going to be one sacking, and it ain't the Prof!

I don't think anyone's getting sacked. However if the school management buckle and agree to his demands, then we'll be doing what we have done for the past few years (bringing in casual staff, on low pay, to cover the holes in our teaching). It would create huge ill-feeling towards the Prof and the school management. 

I'm getting emails from other senior colleagues asking what is going on. Word is clearly getting out that there is an issue here. 

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5 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I don't think anyone's getting sacked. However if the school management buckle and agree to his demands, then we'll be doing what we have done for the past few years (bringing in casual staff, on low pay, to cover the holes in our teaching). It would create huge ill-feeling towards the Prof and the school management. 

I'm getting emails from other senior colleagues asking what is going on. Word is clearly getting out that there is an issue here. 

In the Netflix miniseries your character will be similar to Bill Pullman in the Sinner. Slightly tired around the edges but beloved detective in a tweed jacket, striving to build the case and find the evidence to take down a greater evil. 

Edited by cb_diamond
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51 minutes ago, Robin.Hood said:

Somebody caught stealing.

Said person been sacked

Said person burned uniform and went on Snapchat showing people

Said person now in a mental hospital .

All in a space of 4 days.

Can you give us more details? This has potential, strong potential.

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I’m puzzled[mention=48662]scottsdad[/mention]. How is this guy a ‘big name’ Prof if he’s joined you on a Teaching Contract, unless it’s something very specialist?
It doesn’t sound like that’s the case, in that you have ‘allocated’ the new boy his teaching hours.
I’m assuming a ‘Red Brick’ Russell Group institution given the description of the Management structure?
If the chap is a renowned academic, surely it’s also down to his research pedigree, which you would also expect would bring more value to the University in the novation of existing grants (the transfer of his PhD students perhaps) and securing new funding. If he has joined you with continuing commitments from another University, wouldn’t this already impact on his R&D and Supervision time?
You mentioned that you were short staffed at the moment, but it seems unusual that a six figure salary, highly regarded Professor would be brought in as scheduled cover for teaching hours no? He sounds like a pain, but has he joined you on a genuine misunderstanding given his level or has he become so research- inactive that teaching his only option at present? [emoji848]
Interesting comments from Clockwork. I'm genuinely intrigued as to the interview process / criteria that have been used in this situation. Presumably for an academic position at professor level, then this guy's previous research and published work, along with his 'standing' amongst peers within this specialised field makes it sound as if there wouldn't exactly have been a stampede of suitably qualified applicants for the post.
Even although this guy has signed up to a specific contract, his hubris allows him to ignore the duties contained within same and rewrite it / pick and choose what he is prepared to do ?
Academia sounds a bit f*cked up.
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7 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

Interesting comments from Clockwork. I'm genuinely intrigued as to the interview process / criteria that have been used in this situation. Presumably for an academic position at professor level, then this guy's previous research and published work, along with his 'standing' amongst peers within this specialised field makes it sound as if there wouldn't exactly have been a stampede of suitably qualified applicants for the post.
Even although this guy has signed up to a specific contract, his hubris allows him to ignore the duties contained within same and rewrite it / pick and choose what he is prepared to do ?
Academia sounds a bit f*cked up.

It is extremely fucked up. 

The interview process is two-stage. Stage 1 - the academic gives a presentation to staff on why they are suitable for the role. The staff then put together their thoughts, collated by a member of staff. Stage 2 - an interview with senior university people. At the end of this stage the member of staff who collated the feedback gives it to the interview panel. 

What I found out this time is stage 1 is irrelevant. The feedback was universally negative regarding the Prof, and he was appointed anyway. To be honest the feedback for almost all applicants was negative!

There are two types of contract - teaching and research, and teaching and scholarship. T&R appointments focus on funding won, publications, patents, etc. T&S focus on what they can do to enhance and ramp up the teaching offering.  

Edited by scottsdad
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2 hours ago, Clockwork said:

 


I’m puzzled@scottsdad. How is this guy a ‘big name’ Prof if he’s joined you on a Teaching Contract, unless it’s something very specialist?
It doesn’t sound like that’s the case, in that you have ‘allocated’ the new boy his teaching hours.
I’m assuming a ‘Red Brick’ Russell Group institution given the description of the Management structure?
If the chap is a renowned academic, surely it’s also down to his research pedigree, which you would also expect would bring more value to the University in the novation of existing grants (the transfer of his PhD students perhaps) and securing new funding. If he has joined you with continuing commitments from another University, wouldn’t this already impact on his R&D and Supervision time?
You mentioned that you were short staffed at the moment, but it seems unusual that a six figure salary, highly regarded Professor would be brought in as scheduled cover for teaching hours no? He sounds like a pain, but has he joined you on a genuine misunderstanding given his level or has he become so research- inactive that teaching his only option at present? emoji848.png

 

 

S03E02-IU3lNESO-subtitled.jpg

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I like Christmas nights out. I don’t socialise with my colleagues outside of work so it’s a good opportunity to do so - plus it’s a free meal and some drinks, can’t go wrong really. I’m lucky in that I’ve got colleagues who are decent chat/not utterly boring. I imagine if you work for a big company with loads of employees then the Christmas nights out can get a bit wild.

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6 minutes ago, jamamafegan said:

I like Christmas nights out. I don’t socialise with my colleagues outside of work so it’s a good opportunity to do so - plus it’s a free meal and some drinks, can’t go wrong really. I’m lucky in that I’ve got colleagues who are decent chat/not utterly boring. I imagine if you work for a big company with loads of employees then the Christmas nights out can get a bit wild.

Every year without fail ( well aside the last two) always something happens. Last one a girl fell and got a cut on her nose however went on to say someone hit her. Bizzare but this went on for a while this lie until she admitted she made it up.

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4 hours ago, scottsdad said:

I don't think anyone's getting sacked. However if the school management buckle and agree to his demands, then we'll be doing what we have done for the past few years (bringing in casual staff, on low pay, to cover the holes in our teaching). It would create huge ill-feeling towards the Prof and the school management. 

I'm getting emails from other senior colleagues asking what is going on. Word is clearly getting out that there is an issue here. 

If you hadn't posted it on here, none of your senior colleagues would be any the wiser...

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This could take a while...

On Monday night a scene from the West Wing was running through my mind. Josh was saying in it that the First Lady's chief of staff was no good for a number of reasons, including "he thinks things get decided in meetings!" I realised this was right - I would go into this meeting with something decided already. I needed plans and options. 

Tuesday and yesterday were busy. I had chats with various senior people across the school on general staffing stuff and saying "As an aside, you'll never guess what's happening with this new Prof...". Reaction was universal - appalled. If the time came that I had to go to the nuclear option, I would have backup from senior people everywhere. I heard also that he was having similar meetings with the management of the school, clearly trying to get me with a fait accompli. 

In the meeting would be an ally of mine and we put our heads together to decide a strategy. Very simple but it was in three steps.

  1. Prof buckles and agrees to what we have said already. He accepts the fact of my greatness and agrees to call me Master from now on. Failing that;
  2. The jist of his argument to others was this "it's outside of my subject specialism" line. Nobody else gets hit with this stick but my thinking was - what if he gets agreement ahead of the meeting? What if I get told in no uncertain terms that he will not/cannot teach this course? Easy - we found a backup course that aligned as close as possible with what he was saying. If the issue was just this course, then I would have him on this other one. And as a last resort/backup;
  3. If he manoeuvers himself out of teaching a course altogether, then I made up a list of jobs and tasks that he would do in lieu of this. The school manager would never accept him doing nothing, so I made this list. We have many jobs away from teaching that are horrendous - dissertation co-ordination, admissions officer, programme leader, year leader and many others. These are tedious, time consuming and an absolute hair shirt for anyone doing one of these. I picked three jobs that from experience are just awful. I labelled this option "make him wish he'd just taken the bloody course"

This morning I was making packed lunches for the kids. I asked the wife what she wanted and she told me she was working from home today. She never does on a Thursday, but today she was here working on her laptop. "You can have the meeting here, no need to go to another room," she said. I think she just wanted to listen in. I had talked over all this with her. 

So anyway, the meeting came. Just as suspected he had been busy. The deputy nuclear option said that she had spoken with the nuclear option on the Prof's behalf and got his agreement that he would not teach a course in the spring. Turns out the nuclear option is in fact an Iraqi SCUD missile circa 1990. So, of the options above we went straight to three.

He readily agreed to take on the three ultra shitty jobs. The staff doing these at present will be chuffed. In fact, I suspected, he would agree to anything at all given his no-teaching this year. Having got out of teaching, he was like Don Corleone on his daughter's wedding day. He could refuse nothing else. So I started on about next year, knowing that he would fight me tooth and nail if I did this at a later date. I gave him two big courses and he agreed right away (this is what is in his contract). He maybe doesn't realise it, but I have no intention of taking the shitty jobs off him. Come this time next year he'll be very unhappy. All this signed off and agreed. 

It isn't a win for me - he is right now probably enjoying a smile to himself. In time though he might realise that had he agreed to take this one course now, he could have saved himself a lot of pain over the next few years. 

Add to that, word is out. Many people wanted to know what was happening with this meeting and now they know. It's being raised at a school management level next week - the SCUD missile agreeing to these demands has not made any friends. In some ways people aren't mad at the Prof - like many here some folk admire that he's got away with so much. The head of school though could face a hard time in future. 

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