A Series of Tubes

I do not have direct proof of the copied idea but I will just point the following out:

1) I have a blog

2) said blog is awesome

3) anyone can read my blog, including people at the University of California

4) The UC started its own blog.

The fairly obvious step at about 3.5 is that the University of California decided to copy my genius idea of starting a blog after seeing how awesome mine was.  Of course the UC has a lot to learn about writing a blog.  First, they need to open up their blog to comments.  Second, they need to post more pictures and videos (the whole blog looks repetitive and boring).  Lastly, they need to post that they are going to cut UC salaries fairly and proportional to the total compensation package they receive (including the cost of any car allowance and or houses) and not just salaries.  As a side note I find it slightly hilarious that UC president Mark Yudoff’s car money is called an allowance, the same thing little kids get each week to learn about money… “Now be a good boy UC president and enjoy your car allowance.  Play nice with the other kids and don’t mess up California’s higher education system”.

I’m going on a slight diversion about the UC budget before I get back to talking about the UC blog.  The proposed salary reductions for staff at the UC following the California budget crisis are as follows:

Looks like a fair deal right?  The people making the most money take the biggest hit.  I’m surprised the higher ups at the UC would approve something that would hit them the hardest, since they are most likely to land in that 7th salary band.  What is that asterisk doing up there at the top of the table?  It sort of hovers like the home run record of a steroid injected baseball player.  Let’s read what that refers to:

The UC system carved out the lowest cuts for senior managers, less of a cut than the lowest paid employees at the UC.  All of the sudden this very fair system is a big middle finder to everyone that is not a senior manager.  I became a fountain of 4 letter words when I found that little nugget of information.  Anyhow, end of diversion and now back to the new UC blog.

The UC blog is unfortunately just a place where the UC is posting all its press releases regarding budget issues and other PR fluff.  I was disappointed to find out that the blog was not a place where Yudoff posted the random thoughts that pop into his head before ADD draws his attention away by something shiny. That place would apparently be his twitter page.  On his twitter page Yudoff reviews the latest harry potter movie: “No joie de vivre in new Harry Potter. Idealism trumped by combating evil. Good special fx, but plot is a pastiche. Is it my age or Harry’s?”. Yudoff needs to A) learn to write a movie review and B) Fix the massive Budget issues facing the UC (equitably) instead of tweeting a critique of the writing in the latest Harry Potter movie.  Yudoff also apparently has a facebook page.  Perhaps by calling it web 2.0 marketers have made time sinks such as twitter and facebook somehow a legitimate use of time for the president of the UC. Marketers are evil geniuses. I can’t wait to read Yudoff’s review of Twilight in 140 characters or less.  Of course there are other scenarios that would be even worse for Yudoff to tweet about.  Perhaps the most useful thing that the UC blog can post are pictures of Yudoff not wasting all his time on facebook and twitter or carving out salary cut exceptions for upper management.  Even in this down economy, that would be a sound investment.

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UPDATED (7-31-09):

I kept commenting on this post because of new information so instead I have decided to merge my comments with the original post.  My original post was quite tongue and cheek but unfortunately the reality of the situation is depressing as hell.

Those in the Senior Management Group (SMG) can be found in a link contained in a Human resources document. The HR document is found by following the link titled “SMG 110 — SMG Salary and Appointment” on this page. In this document the Senior Management group is defined by Standing Order 100.1:

“the President of the University, Executive Vice Presidents, Senior Vice Presidents, other Vice Presidents, Associate Vice Presidents, Assistant Vice Presidents, University Auditor, Chancellors, Vice Chancellors, and Directors and Deputy Directors of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Directors of University hospitals”

The reason given by the SMG that their cut should be smaller is because in May they took a 5% pay cut. See: http://www.public-press.org/content/2009/07/15/uc-staff-faculty-rally-as-regents-meet-on-budget-cuts

Of course in May, a 5% pay cut was not some altruistic act performed by the office of the president. Freshman enrollment was reduced by 2,300 students, student fees were increased by 9.3%, hiring freezes were put into place, and many people were fired. Of course the 5% pay cut still does not touch the other perks that the senior management group gets including car allowances, mansions to live in, and very large retirement plans. When you look at how much total compensation is lost, the SMG exits the cuts quite well because a 5% drop in salary does not cover all the money handed out to the SMG. I’m sure those making under $40k would be fine with a 5% pay cut if they lived in a mansion paid for by the state and have over $8k a year car allowance.

ALSO: The UC approved pay increases through a stipend system (sneaky bastards), and got around the May Hiring freeze by utilizing stating: “In accordance with authority previously delegated by the Regents, interim action was taken on routine or emergency matters” and then hiring a bunch of people. So you can cut the base salary of upper management (constituting a pay cut), then raise the salary by large amounts, some as high as a 47.5% salary raise, through a stipend system and somehow claim that you are sharing the pain of the budget cuts.  Effing brilliant.

The full deal given to UC staff is this:
SMG will take at maximum a 9% salary cut (5% in May and some number less than 4% now). The Mansion and car allowance will not be touched and neither will the very large retirement plan. Then SMG officials will possibly get a stipend to increase their total pay. Normal Staff will either get fired (sorry I don’t know the percentage of those fired, but I do know people at UCSC who have been fired so it is not a trivial number) and if you still have a job, you will get a 5-10% pay cut. No car payments, mansion, or sneaky stipend for this group.  After a year, the furloughs and pay cuts will go away and be restored to their original levels, but those fired will remain fired.

You’ve got to give it up for the Unions, they’ve researched the crap out of this.

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