Corporate bots

It has come to my attention that the corporate bots around us have been increasing in recent months, especially since the great Auspicious Event which saw corporate bots placed at the top of the pyramid of what is otherwise a thoroughly academic environment.

There seems to be a clash of cultures within the establishment. On the one hand we have the vast majority of its inhabitants: academics and students, people whose main concerns are learning, teaching and so on. These go on about their business without paying too much attention to bureaucracy. The other inhabitants, the corporate bots, are there to regulate just that. They fear that by leaving academics and students to run the place it won't be run properly. The clash of cultures comes from the different perceptions which prevail among the two crowds. Most academics are focused on research and teaching, and only do whatever admin they do grudgingly. They do realise the need for an institution that is sound financially, and they understand the benefit from increased revenues from student fees. At the same time, they don't go as far as understanding higher education as another commercial activity. The fact that students pay fees does not make them customers. Academics believe firmly in student responsibility and accountability. Only students who take an active part in their studies can succeed. Regardless of how much they paid in fees. Universities aren't supermarkets selling meat, the so-called customers need to engage with the subject and work hard. In a supermarket you just throw things in the basket and pay.


On the other hand we have the corporate bots. Self-important Alan Sugar wannabes that couldn't quite make it in the real corporate world and ended up managing a bunch of academics in tweed jackets, elbow patches and besocked feet in sandals. And they come to universities and behave as if they are in the real corporate world. They organise meetings, use clipboards, send memos, organise idiotic award ceremonies which are too similar to the Oscars for comfort. They stick to hierarchy... About hierarchy: what is it with these morons that they always have to put in place these chains of command and expect everyone else to adhere to them? So much so that if you email the wrong person you get a memo for doing so. They are people who tell their people to tell your people to ask you if you can give them a ring. They are people who get the secretary to email you just to show how important they are. They draw statistics to measure their success and to highlight your failures. And they sell the place. They consider it some kind of business, like a bank or something. They 'sell' it, 'promote' it, advertise it, use it as a product, based on moronic business and marketing principles they picked up while doing data entry in some fucking third-grade ex-polytechnic.


And they lie. They lie to students, and they lie to parents. They sell them the product, the result of the academics' brilliance, in such a way that the student thinks that all they need to do is sit there and be taught. Any glitch and they're on the phone to their lawyers, as customers would do. Just because they were sold a product by the corporate bots who think they're as high-flying as their moronic cousins in London who sailed the economy straight into the rocks. Our corporate bots are more dangerous though. Because they have a massive chip on their shoulder. They know they're not good enough. They know that the academics look down on them as bean counters and underqualified overpaid pains in the ass. And they know very well that if they were real corporate animals they wouldn't be working in a fluffy environment such as the university, they would be out there in the cut-throat world, earning millions and holidaying in exotic destinations. But no, they are in god's asshole of corporateness and they know it. And they can't wait to jump ship. And I can't wait to give them an ever so gentle prod. Kill the corporate bot.