HACkers blog

Opinion seems to be divided on who holds power in the institution - and specifically, who has too much, or too little. This was rather starkly illustrated recently when a staff member in payclass 13 (allegedly) remarked that academics had too much power. Deducing from the context, it appeared that the "academics" referred to were not the rank 'n filers, but specifically The Senate.

Mere minutes later, the latest edition of Not the Monday Paper was complaining about the extreme opposite - that the Senate had been reduced further from its previous role as a rubber stamp, to mere rubber.

There seem to be at least three contending models underlying the differences of opinion. The Not the Monday Paper opinion appears to rest on a slightly dusty, liberal (in the classic, not political invective, sense) notion of collegiality. The Bremnercrat opinion appears located in a more managerialist, neoliberal paradigm. And alongside those, from time to time the student sector voices something akin to a participatory, democratic view of co-operative governance.

It's difficult to gauge who is mistaken on this, since an examination of the discourse, the policies and their embodiment in practice and process show that the institution espouses... all three. And all three claim, in their own way and on their own terms, to be the most progressive, the least repressive, the most appropriate for the context.

If the institution were a person, some doctor would be shaking their head and prescribing pills. Instead, many doctors are shaking their heads and prescribing pills - not to the institution, but to the many employees who struggle to reconcile the fundamental contradictions in some small way that allows them to carry out their work, in an increasingly schizoid environment.  

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For a while there, it seemed like a good measure of the Institution's mental health - sideways-on bar graphs, the levels rising and falling like the dancing patterns of a graphic equaliser. Only these were shelves, stacked with boxes of condoms, outside the Supercare offices. 

And then, one day, they were all gone. Bare shelves remained. A busy weekend? Perhaps. Just at the point where I wanted to check the batch numbers on the boxes against the list of faulty ones...

 The good news, subsequently, is that the raincoats are back - back outside Supercare's offices, back in the toilets. Back once used, no doubt, in bins in the Arts Block toilets. 

For those who're worried, the list of flakey brands and batches below.  

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 It seems to have been a week of old men dreaming dreams and young men seeing visions (or whichever way round that is supposed to go).

As Pamela Ewing awoke to discover an entire series of Dallas had been just a dream, MLK was having dreams of a different kind in the Not the Monday Paper. 

For those who've not yet seen the latest issue, a link has been provided below. 

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...but only in short bursts. A recent article in The Guardian cited a Kentucky / British Columbia study that found that performance was improved by stress in short, controlled bursts, and that this "fight or flight" response boosted the immune system.

Chronic stress, however, had a negative effect - including lowered immunity and increased illness.

Given the current uibquity of departmental reviews, the protractedness of those processes and the lack of control experienced by those subjected to them over their situations, it's hardly surprising that the Organisational Health figures reflect increases in stress and depression. And examination of sick leave figures correlated against departmental reviews, restructuring processes and other organisational sources of stress would no doubt provide similarly interesting data.

Morale at the Knowledge Factory on the Hill has never been higher.

Recent Org Health figures point to a sharp rise in workplace stress and depression, and the plummeting of workplace relationships.

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Pro-democracy protests in Burma have burst through my best defences against the outside world.

Beyond images of a rainbow wave of monks to the background soundrack of U2's Walk On, my mind has been caught by the tension between a philosophy striving for equanimity and the overcoming of attachment, and protest action to bring about social change. 

Aung San Suu Kyi calls on us to use our liberty to promote theirs - and as South Africans, mindful of the role played by others in supporting our own liberation struggle, many of us feel it is our moral duty to do so.

What we can do:

• Sign the petition (see link below)
• Support International Bloggers' Day To Support Burma on Thursday 4 October (see details below)
• Join the Facebook group to Support the Monks' Protest in Burma and
• Take part in the Day of International Action on 6 October (see details below)
  

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