Inconsequentials & Trivialities

Late last night, one of my colleagues sent out an email to the entire college. This gentleman frequently has points of view and opinions that go against the groupthink at MJC. Sometimes I agree with what he has to say, other times I do not. Sometimes I cringe at the way he says it, other times not so much. But he’s always good for provoking discussions/rants/arguments/conversation. This email was about last Wednesday’s board meeting. His point was that despite how upset at the Board everyone wants to be, none of those who stood up to speak at the meeting offered a viable alternative to the President’s plan. Having no alternatives from which to choose, the Board voted yes on the only option they had before them. He paraphrases the parade of speeches thusly:

“You need to save program X, because it is REALLY important”.
“…(OK, how much will that cost and where is the money coming from?)…”
“Did I mention it’s REALLY IMPORTANT?”
“Thank you, your time is up…”
“NONONONONONO, REEEEEEALLY IMPORTANT”
“Thank you…”
“GRRRRRRR!”
“Thank you…”
“GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!       GRRR!    (YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!)”

 Oversimplified, sure. But it does sort of encapsulate most of what was presented. You can read the entire email here.

 So, what I find frustrating are the responses that I’ve heard to his email.

1. From a friend and coworker – “He’s an idiot.” Based on past experience, she thinks anybody with whom she doesn’t agree is an idiot. She does go on to say that if anyone is guilty of what he charges, it is he himself; he should have come to all of this realization several weeks earlier.
   He does use the first person when he assigns blame. Why does my friend think that he is excluding himself?
2. Faculty member #1 – (derisively) Too bad he didn’t come to this realization weeks earlier.
   Hindsight=20/20. Yeah, it would also be nice if there were a new $100 bill under my pillow when I woke up every morning. But is the OP wrong?
3. Faculty member #2 – (skipping past the point entirely) The Academic Senate doesn’t have the resources to do the study that the OP refers to in his email.
4. Faculty member #3 – “Not so. We didn’t argue that way at all. We wanted to address a point that didn’t even need to be voted upon that night.”
5. Faculty member #4 – “We didn’t have enough time to present and nobody wants to listen anyhow.”

That last point might be entirely germane, actually. But I think it’s also true that nobody wants to listen to my emailing colleague. We don’t tolerate a lot of deviation from the hive mind around here.

Tags: postaday2011

This entry was posted on Monday, March 14th, 2011 at 11:01 am by Seaners and is filed under MJC, Modesto Junior College. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.