Had A Great Fall

"When I use the word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I chose it to mean – neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, " whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be the master – that’s all."

Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

This is text from a letter sent, via registered mail, to an untenured faculty member:

...please be advised that this letter serves as a notice of non-reappointment of your faculty contract with Edison Community College for FY 2009-10. Once Edison's budget has been finalized, the College will make a determination as to appropriate next steps, including potential re-employment, as the budget allows.

Sincerely,
Linda

Linda M. Peltier
Executive Director
President's Office and Strategic HR

It is quite difficult, even for our Stategeric Director of Human Resources, to re-employ someone who has not been un-employed. Many received similar or identical letters; so, will someone, for the love of Almighty God Scooting About In Heaven On Puffy Clouds of Glory please explain to the The Illuminator how there is any other way to interpret that language as anything other than a firing? And, consequently, how anyone receiving such or similar notice could be attacked (and perchance accused of lying) for explaining it as such? Now, consider this text from an email generated by KY's account on April 14th, 2009. It is a sentiment he also repeated in front of about forty witnesses at the Board Meeting on April 15th, 2009.

...It is very important for everyone at Edison to understand that no faculty member or no administrator or classified employee has been non-renewed or fired..

Umkay. Does KY even know what The Strategeric Director of Human Resources is doing? Or is he hanging her out to dry to save face? Or is the whole administration in such bedlam that no reasoning applies? None of us here at The Illuminator studied philosophy beyond the undergraduate level, so we are not privy to the level of logic required to reconcile the two statements above.

Yet it would appear, taking the language on its face, that KY has preemptively rehired everyone he preemptively fired during the Edison HR Massacre on March, 24, 2009, as well as unfired those to whom notice of non-renewal has been given at later dates, in his name.

So this leaves some unfired folks in a quandary--have sick days been reset? Can the newly unfired renegotiate salary? Have dates of rollover and/or hire been reset to the day of the board meeting? If let go in March, and then again in June, does that mean a person has been fired from Edison twice? What about STRS? Does this bizarre HR conniption affect, in any way, contributions or retirement dates? And what should be done with now useless notifications, however given?

Perhaps they should be returned to the Strategeric Director of Human Resources, each a reminder of what happens when "Strategic HR" isn't.