Hush Now, The Grownups Are Talking

Sigh.

In a stunning example of obliviousness, a profoundly irrelevant email was generated from KY's edisonohio.edu account at the close of business, Wednesday. The email was sent without comment, and seemed offered as evidence that might help excuse the madness with which he and his ilk have soaked our College:

See? I told you it's bad out there!


Though the text in the email was clearly not KY's work, it was offered without attribution, and would thusly fail any Edison Comp I section. After a cursory blogs-facebooks-interweb search, we located the original article on Gongwer.com, an Ohio legislative news service. All members of The Editorial Junta work at Edison and therefore cannot afford a subscription to the service, so we must trust KY (no small order) when he cuts and pastes 1000 words of budget blather. The article does not mention the education tranche of the budget, the provisions of which may not be affected. Or maybe they will. We don't know because the article is only tangentially related to what we're dealing with here at Edison.

Again, sigh.

Let's take this from the top, shall we? Yes. Let's.
  1. The State of Ohio's financial situation is problematic.
  2. A reduction in the rate of subsidy may present budgeting challenges.
  3. Edison employees--as well as the community--are confused about exactly how deep our "cuts" in subsidy will be, because the administration has intentionally misled us at home, and in the press.
  4. The Edison HR Columbine was a hideous overreaction based upon a misreading of KY's and the Board's own policies, a thickheaded misunderstanding of applicable laws and common sense. In short, a very stupid thing to do.
  5. The Edison HR Columbine exemplified a pattern in KY's actions that constitute managerial malpractice which is being committed at an accelerating rate.
  6. The Edison HR Columbine was only the last in a series of horrible decisions taken by KY, or taken with his imprimatur.
  7. The Academic Senate is within its rights to call BS on KY when his MO seems to be to take decisions that will ensure the destruction of our College.
  8. KY's--and his minions'--responses to the exercise of parliamentary prerogative were personally directed, transparently petty, juvenile, retributive, base, malicious and in several senses, illegal.
  9. KY's biggest concern in the current crisis seems to be that folks are no longer pretending his see-thru unitard exists.
  10. The Board of Trustees' responses to the Academic Senate's concerns show the money KY has thrown at junkets (and perhaps other perks of office) has been well spent, as no matter what evidence is given them seems to affect the Board's reluctance to stand up to the bully and his cronies.
  11. KY's--and the Board's--intransigence has caused terrible harm to Edison's reputation and the confidence our students have in the College.
  12. KY's--and his minons'--increasingly erratic, hostile behavior has utterly destroyed an already crumbling morale.

KY and his minions' weak, absurd responses to the budget crisis, and their shameful reactions to principled objection from free-thinking grownups, comprise
the crisis.

What vexes Edison is not that we're facing a possible contraction in the budget. It's that KY's management has in large part caused the problem, and continues, in the face of this challenge, to show plainly how we should regard
the last decade of his stewardship: appalling in the extreme.

We distrust KY's leadership. The money is secondary. For years KY has been running this place into the ground. Now that it's time for a reckoning, he expects the rest of us to pay his always bloated tab. The email generated from his account shows he has, as is customary, missed the point completely. But we shouldn't be surprised. In his long rap-sheet of mal-leadership, dollar signs have often eclipsed humanity, and keeping his subjects cowering in fear has constituted the whole of his management ethos.

An email from KY explaining, justifying or--gasp--apologizing for the horrible things he's done to people these many years would be quite a thing to read. But who would have time to write such a thing? Or to read it, scanning through page after page after page? Especially when it's so much easier to pretend the folks who have pitted themselves against your will are worried after money, instead of higher or human concerns.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would not have a problem with his perks as long as we were awash in money or at least sound. Not one single perk for anyone is worth losing the job of one our lowest paid employee. It's the people stupid, not some management fantasy you read about or bought at an expensive conference that makes greatness. He has lost most of the people here now. Getting them back should be his #1 issue.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous 1,
You must be delirious to even minimally suggest that Yowell has even the slightest possibility of getting the employees at Edison "back". Not a chance. He cannot continue. He must go. He is not trusted. He will never be trusted. There is nothing he can do to undo the damage he has done. Everything he does is questioned and questionable. His inner circle is despised and distrusted. They must go also. It's over. Time to move on. New prez and new admin needed NOW.

Dear EdJunta,
Thanks for gathering the pieces to give us a better perspective on the reality of this miserable and embarassing situation. Keep it coming. We need what you're doing.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that KY has pursued a practice of getting back at Edison's employees, rather than making any meaningful efforts to get them back. What KY has done can't be fixed. Time's up KY. Go home.

Anonymous said...

O my people, do not misread the EJ's bleary eyed fantasies of war-studied-no-more to mean that such an email as we have mentioned would in any way obviate the essential requirement that KY fall on his sword. We only wish to point out his behavior is devoid of basic humility, and is usually focused on something that means a lot to him, but has little relevance to what the grownups are discussing. At this point, we have discussed it: we don't know what the fellow could do to repair Edison's morale, but we have agreed to enjoy any effort he might make, however futile.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what is more disturbing to me:1) what KY and his crew has done, or 2) that we have let him get by with it for so long. Maybe it is the combination of the two that leaves a fowl taste in my mouth that won't go away until KY and crew do.

Anonymous said...

Mr Junta-
Is it not ironic that Raceland is in KY?

Anonymous said...

KY has always enjoyed his perks..why most of his close administration has been developed because he utilized his perks, and I am not speaking of $$$$$. Has anyone ever heard the saying "Once a cheater always a cheater." Disney World here we come.......

Anonymous said...

Not just Disney World. :-)

Anonymous said...

Comment 2 has it nailed.
"There is nothing he can do to undo the damage he has done."
Exactly.

Anonymous said...

All that and let's not forget . . .
13. The failure, or is it inability, to "value" people.
14. The failure of servant leadership that is anything but.
15. The failure that is the CQI charade.
16. The employee in Texas.
17. The failure to walk the talk.
18. The failure to remember how to walk.
19. The failure to stop talking and just simply shut up.

Anyone?

Anonymous said...

KY was paid for vacation not taken? When untold numbers of employees lost any time that they could not carry over? That's terrible. At his rate, payment for a few weeks of vacation would equal what classified workers make in an entire year. What's wrong with that picture? Seems there is no limit to greed and selfishness on KY's part. Sure sounds like a servant leader who values his employees.

Anonymous said...

And that vacation pay, that KK (bless his soul) had pushed down his throat, ain't all folks. One may think that KY is fighting to stay for all that money, the car, the junkets and those sweet little pillowtalk moments around campus that seem to come with the job. But once gone from power at ECC, along with the cadre of worshippers, who then covers the tracks left behind? Hmmmmmm?