- O how happy, how happy are we
To work at wonderful UCT
A world class African university
O we love UCT! - Helpdesk calls unanswered while months go by
Unable to work, we sit down and cry,
Productivity's down and they wonder why,
But we love UCT! - We've money to burn and consultants to hire,
But cutbacks to make and staff we must fire,
New posts to create, but conditions are dire,
But we love UCT! - Programs imposed, which the students don't want,
Academics dislike, and administrators can't
Administer, but it helps not to rant,
We still love UCT! - There's banging and drilling, heads constantly ache,
With our IRP5s there's the annual "mistake",
The Receiver's demanding - how much more can we take?
But we love UCT! - The cleaners outsourced, teaching posts under threat,
While the bureaucracy gets larger and fatter, and yet
It takes even longer before what you want, you can get ,
How we love UCT! - Arrive after 7am, there's no parking around,
But student cars in staff bays can be found
- In fact, on every available piece of ground,
They too love UCT! - The Monday Paper arrives every week ,
His Master's Voice we love to hear speak,
A dissenting voice? Or even a squeak?
No, we all love UCT! - Outdated Web pages, despite the award,
1998 fees, and the DIT must have got bored
With updating his page, but so what if it's flawed,
We all love UCT! - Managing funds with the "precision" of SAP
Discrepancies, delays, and all measure of crap
Not to mention the speed - might as well take a nap,
But we love UCT! - DAs are all gone, so secretaries must run,
HODs photocopy, research left undone,
Telephones left unanswered, but it's ever such fun,
How we love UCT! - At the end of the day, when we climb in our cars,
Drown our sorrows on the way home in bars,
Wondering if life isn't better on Mars,
We still love UCT! - O, how lucky, how blessed are we,
Working at this glorious UCT,
We keep telling ourselves, till we believe it, that we
So much love UCT! - The intrusion of ISA, cessation of work,
Password pop-up flashes, but that's just a quirk,
Total system meltdown - permission to shirk?
How we love UCT! - The Deputy Toad has a dubious past
A dubious future, but oh, what a blast!
A glorious present he must hope will last -
He must love UCT! - Our Groupwise client, how we all love thee
Wait and wait for your mail, and then - oh, gee!
Server's down, so we can't tell the DVC
How we love UCT!! - Our voicemail is broken: it bleats to declare
No message is waiting. But should one be there
The silence is deafening. O user, beware!
But we love UCT! - The buses that transport our students are staff
Get threatened by armed thugs - but that's only half:
Now thugs share the contract! To cry or to laugh,
When we love UCT? - It's graduation. From far and close by
Graduands come, excited, in jacket and tie,
Their very first time the VC to espy,
For they love UCT!
Right, submissions have been received, and it's time to decide what stays, what goes. Please indicate which of the following stanzas (verses, for those that prefer) you would like to see in the New Improved "We Love UCT"
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With grad looming, Leslie gets its annual spit 'n polish, which this year included extermination. (No no, not the kind one would welcome down at Bremner - this was spraying for vermin of the Class Insecta kind.) As a result, Maintenance switched off the aircon - no doubt to prevent accidental fumigation of any staff who'd undergone a Kafka-esque Metamorphosis.
This morning the computer labs were very hot, so the lab manager went to open the sliding glass doors - and discovered one lab doing a Plett imitation. Water was pouring out of the ceiling, dripping on to the computers below, and pooling in the carpets. Monitors were covered in a thick, sticky film, and suspicious brown pools lurched off the edge of the desks in Niagaroid glory, splashing into the crocodile breeding grounds below. At first, it was suspected that "turning off the aircon" did not include turning off the heating, which Maintenance sought to remedy. They discovered, however, that that was not the cause - instead, it was a leaking toilet on level 4. In fact, the sewage pipes were completely blocked, and the leak was the result of the pressure build up. Hence, no doubt, the suspicious colour. The planned solution was to blast the pipes open by flushing the system with more pressure. The resulting tidal wave might sweep away most of Upper Campus, but assuming enough of Leslie is left standing to host the Grad functions, I'd recommend a slight modification to this year's Grad ceremony: after capping the graduants, the student health staff inject them in the arm with a typhoid prevention shot. Parents will be issued, together with their tickets, a voucher for inocculation at their nearest public health facility. And now, given that my office is lower-lying than the Leslie Building, I am heading for higher ground until the tsunami is past.... "Why do men have nipples?" - more locally preceded by "do men have nipples?" - is one of those recurring questions people seem to obsess about as yet another bottle empties and the music slows down.
Which - considering that no one older than five dwells on why Auntie Fatima at the fish&chips shop has a beard - is one of the *truly* puzzling questions in life. The answer to the male nipples question brings to mind the origin of the Y chromosome, and the mantra instilled in all first year Zoology students: Ontogenie Herhaal Filogenie (ontogeny repeats philogeny) - the development of the individual follows the development of the phylum. The 70s feminists were wrong - it's not the future that's female, it's the past. Which brings us back to Auntie Fatima and her beard. At some point female hormones go into relative retreat, allowing their male counterparts to assert themselves more - bring Auntie Fatima her beard, and many other women the rampant libidos of their later years. Sadly, no accompanying increased proficiency in parallel parking has been observed. But if ontogenic, and phylogenic, trends suggest that female is where we begin, not end, what does this predict for social trends which suggest that masculinity is under threat? After a couple of weeks away, I returned to find that ISA had been rolled out (I write this with a straight face, fully aware that most people reading it won't have a clue what that means. Even if they received the official communication warning them that it was to happen.) and that I could no longer access my email. Or anything else of import. There was no doubt a message sent explaning what to do, but... well, that would be in my mailbox, wouldn't it? The one I can't access. If I could have accessed any web pages, I could perhaps have searched the ICTS site for some clues, but not even my home page (the UCT Library page) would load. Just that cursed ISA box. (Logging a call would be pointless - assuming there were any ICTS staff on Campus at 07h00, none would be so foolish as to betray their presence by answering a phone. Especially not a helpdesk phone.) I tried the obvious - my staff number; my staff [email protected]; my FQN (yes, that probably doesn't mean much to anyone reading this, either); my uct email address in its various forms going back in time - and by about the fourth format I remembered, bingo! I had an ISA account for teaching in the labs, and logged in with that. Once I got in, I found the message that was sent. [email protected], plus network password. Oh. How very intuitive. I have no idea what "wf" stands for, but I suspect they left out the 't" (wtf, for those who need it spelled out). One hour later, and I'm logged in and ready to rock 'n roll. But not to worry, there's bound to be some other snare waiting just around the bend to prevent me doing anything constructive, again. It would be far too easy, just the one. Which, of course, reminded me of that doggerel that did the rounds all those years back: O how happy, how happy are we To work at wonderful UCT A world class African university O we love UCT! Helpdesk calls unanswered while months go by Unable to work, we sit down and cry, Productivity's down and they wonder why, But we love UCT! We've money to burn and consultants to hire, But cutbacks to make and staff we must fire, New posts to create, but conditions are dire, But we love UCT! Programs imposed, which the students don't want, Academics dislike, and administrators can't Administer, but it helps not to rant, We still love UCT! There's banging and drilling, heads constantly ache, With our IRP5s there's the annual "mistake", The Receiver's demanding - how much more can we take? But we love UCT! The cleaners outsourced, teaching posts under threat, While the bureaucracy gets larger and fatter, and yet It takes even longer before what you want, you can get , How we love UCT! Arrive after 7am, there's no parking around, But student cars in staff bays can be found - In fact, on every available piece of ground, They too love UCT! The Monday Paper arrives every week , His Master's Voice we love to hear speak, A dissenting voice? Or even a squeak? No, we all love UCT! Outdated Web pages, despite the award, 1998 fees, and the DIT must have got bored With updating his page, but so what if it's flawed, We all love UCT! Managing funds with the "precision" of SAP Discrepancies, delays, and all measure of crap Not to mention the speed - might as well take a nap, But we love UCT! DAs are all gone, so secretaries must run, HODs photocopy, research left undone, Telephones left unanswered, but it's ever such fun, How we love UCT! At the end of the day, when we climb in our cars, Drown our sorrows on the way home in bars, Wondering if life isn't better on Mars, We still love UCT! O, how lucky, how blessed are we, Working at this glorious UCT, We keep telling ourselves, till we believe it, that we So much love UCT! Anonymous |
Author"The personal is political." Archives
June 2016
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