Beyond the Drawbridge

I whinged, open channel, about a particularly troublesome speaker. He was from the Human Nutrition department, obviously.

What I didn’t mention was how nauseatingly self-congratulatory they were. ‘Of course, we all know we need low GI versions of Kelloggs Cornflakes’ and stuff like that. What was striking was how little adverse or hostile comment there was. Go to a proper science seminar and inevitably someone will throw you a curve-ball. That’s what science is about, that’s peer review.

I didn’t know enough about the subject to ask searching questions (although I did laugh out loud at the one scatter graph he presented:  a straight line through it with an r of about 0.2)—and I refrained from commenting that despite any data to support them, he was making recommendations based on what ‘everyone’ (i.e. the HN dept) already ‘knows’.

And these are the people the meeja worship.

Fucking medics. We’re all doomed.

Brunhilde is agog at some of the language in the latest HR newsletter:

SydneyRecruitment manages the end-to-end recruitment of staff and the on-boarding of new staff.

On-boarding sounds like the sort of thing young, fit babes might get up to at Bondi.

I’m afraid I never read those emails anymore. They’re full of such stuff. I retrieved this month’s copy from the trash and chose a few lines at random:

…cancellation of any sponsorship rights going forward.

SydneyPeople is divided into HR teams that work together to service all your HR needs

advice and guidance to [clients] on strategic and operational human resources issues impacting the University’s performance.

…proactive development of internal talent…

…ensures the principles of workforce diversity and EEO are embraced

..ensuring the University’s overall remuneration strategy meets the domestic and global
competition for talent.

I thought ‘meeting competition’ was a great concept, but I’m worried that I’ve been re-aligned:

With an effective date of 1 August 2008 the HR Service Centre will have re-aligned the support of the University’s groups/schools/units to different HRSC Team Members.

Do you think that might impact my performance to such an extent that I might need to proactively embrace internal talent development and be serviced by HR?

This is what you get when stuff is written by people from the Centre for the Mind. Seriously.

I am pleased, nay delighted, to read that

Phase 2 of the brand project kicks off this month with the development and testing of several different brand concepts developed from the market research we conducted in Phase 1.

I once worked for a ‘market-led’ company.  Let’s just say that I discovered that ‘market research’ is code for “we’ve got no imagination so we’re just going to get our potential customers to make stuff up, and deliver it about five years too late, by which time those self-same customers will have got bored and bought from someone else”.  You can add in your own thoughts on how much money such exercises leave for things like, oh for example, research and development.  (There’s a rant brewing.  You can tell, can’t you?).

To help us manage this process, we’ve established a network of specialist sub-committees

Eight sub-committees to be precise.  I couldn’t be bothered counting the names, but there are nine on the steering committee. On average, at least five people on each sub-committee.

We are doomed, aren’t we?

Viking Biochemist writes:

Our lab meeting was invaded this morning by corporate zombies who wanted to show us our “new brand”. Our logo looks like a computer power switch but is supposed to be “a cheeky reminder of a copyright logo” which we then stick over every image in our ads.

Apparently we now own babies, butterflies, eggs, tablets and bees.

This is all so when our granny asks where we work, we don’t have to say
“It’s like the Garvan”, because of course that’s what we all did.

… and this is the place I will have on my CV for the rest of my life as
where I did my PhD. Maybe I should add a note:
I started at the Centenary before they turned evil

Fortunately, there is a good trashy action movie out today, so I can go
and sooth my soul with a giant mechatronic man smashing stuff for two hours.

This reminds me of a strange email that went to everyone on the University HR list a few days ago, the understanding of which yet eludes me:

In 2002 the University determined that dissemination of all text-based, third-party copyright materials required for student course work would be carried out by the Library. However, a decentralised approach was adopted in the case of images, diagrams and artistic works included in lecture presentations and lecture notes. It was agreed that these could be located on individual course web sites and on learning management systems.

The University is party to a new agreement with the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) which places greater emphasis on the monitoring process and in the future details of all images, diagrams and artistic works communicated to students under Part VB of the Copyright Act will have to be recorded during any monitoring of electronic copying and communication exercise.

It continues in that vein ad nauseam. And I am thoroughly sick of corporatization, wank, and arsepaperwork.

Following on from the Black Knight’s misgivings on awards, TheCardinal hears murmurings from his contacts on the review panel of a prestigious Teaching Award. Guess how many applicants there are?

er…

one.

Not that that could ever happen in RESEARCH, of course. …. surely the rumour about how a certain Professor not-too-far from here managed to get awarded a ‘medal’ by the National Biochemical Society couldn’t be true? Could it? naaarrr…

The stupidity (and hubris) of Admin continues, I am reminded.  And we’re not immune from it in the cage:  the director of Academic Administration of the science faculties wants us to dob in all our mates (and spenda shedload of time on it):

The Faculty of Science is developing a database of Faculty International Collaborations to inform its future international strategies.

Academic staff across the Faculty are regularly collaborating with colleagues from around the world on a wide variety of research projects, but the information is not systematically captured by the Faculty and hence opportunities are missed to support, develop and enhance these collaborations.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could provide me with brief details of your three most significant international collaborations between 2005 and 2008 (and into the future if you have plans):

Who your collaborators are and which institutions they are from;

What was the project? 

If any funding was received to  support the project then where from and how much;  

What the outcomes were (eg the number of publications but not details on which journals).

A collation of this data across the Faculty will not only provide the basis for future international strategies but also inform the budgeting process.

Thank you in anticipation of a great response.

What’s telling is (apart from the inability to use a plural such as ‘data’ correctly and the concept of ‘inform’ing non-sentient entities) the line about ‘outcomes’.  These people just have no bloody clue, and they pay our salary.  

But maybe we are finally getting fed up with all this.  An email from the manager of the Science Awareness Section of the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (let’s not even think about how well they all sit together) begins

You may be aware that the nomination period for the 2008 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science closes on 9 May.

To date, the number of nominations received has been disappointing, and is clearly not reflective of the number of potentially suitable nominees currently active in research.

It continues

We had hoped, in fact, to see an increase in the number of nominations for the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year and Science Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the Year, as a result of an amendment to the eligibility criteria for these Prizes.

The prize consists of a shiny medallion, a lapel pin, and a fifty grand ‘grant’, which apparently you’re free to spend on anything you want, but it would take a brave young post-doc to take that literally and buy, say, a sports car.

The thing is, Philip, we just don’t give a rat’s arse.