Answer to Multiple Choice
0 comment Sunday, June 8, 2014 |
Excellent responses everyone...if this were a short-answer exam. However, it was a multiple choice and you all failed (though leigh might get extra credit for creativity and cynical outlook).The correct answer is:D) A or B.Why? Because it depends on which department I'm dealing with.For instance, Payroll and Accounting departments consider me A) a classified employee, because this is how they can squeeze the most tax and fees out of my paycheck before it goes into my bank account (cf. general asshattery).The Benefits Office, on the other hand, insists that I'm B) a graduate student. This way, they don't have to pay anything into a retirement fund for me (students don't retire silly!), and it also means that I would get less time off for maternity leave (and a smaller percentage of my usual take-home pay during that period) should I choose to have a kid, than a classified employee. It also means that I can't be a member of a union (apparently) - not even a student union, as if that would do me any good at all.I have no idea what HR thinks I am. They must be very confused, as they oversee both Payroll and Benefits.My ID/access card says I'm a grad student, but that's only because the nice lady who printed it up for me on my first day asked me what my title was and I said "Uhhh...grad student?". The other grad students here (they're getting both their degree and their paychecks from the same place) all have ID's that read "Trainee".Given the option between "grad student" and "trainee", I think "grad student" sounds slightly less like "pimply kid on his first week working the register at DairyQueen". So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I keep hoping that these two words on my ID badge might accord me some small conceit of respect around these parts. At least slightly more than the kid who can't make change at DairyQueen. So far it hasn't worked. I'll let you know if it ever does.But I digress.It might seem that the answer could also be C) A and B...but according to any one department I am only one or the other - they are very insistent that I cannot be both. They even go so far as to tell me that the other departments are wrong, but they never can seem to get this inconsistency sorted out amongst themselves and frankly, I've got better things to do (like science) than to try to explain to them the concept of a logical fallacy. If these two titles/positions are mutually exclusive, then from the perspective of the institution at large I must be one or the other across all departments. It's called mutual exclusivity. You also cannot divide any number by zero. It's not complicated, but they just cannot grasp this.So in conclusion the best answer, which I realize now was not one of the options, is:(drumroll please)F) whichever allows us to most conveniently screw you out of whatever benefits other people might get by virtue of having a well-defined and inflexible job description. Basically, you're whatever we say you are and you'll like it.In light of that realization I will give you all full credit, since the question was flawed.

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