First, there is no material issue of fact as to how [university and law-school dean Craig] Boise reached the $666 figure. After ranking the law school faculty based on objective, self-reported indices of performance, he divided the faculty into three performance tiers: a $5,000 merit-raise tier, a $3,000 merit-raise tier, and a third “catch-all” tier. After distributing the larger merit raises, Boise divided the remaining merit-raise pool among the third-tier faculty members. Evidence in the record supports Boise’s account that, at least initially, third-tier faculty members were supposed to receive $727, a number that has no biblical significance. Only after the merit pool was reduced, and only after Boise made several minor equitable adjustments to the merit-raise distribution, did [Sheldon] Gelman receive a raise of $666. Moreover, the $0 and $666 raises fell on pro-union and antiunion faculty members alike, undermining Gelman’s claim that the raise amount was specifically chosen to send a message to union organizers....It is pretty annoying to get a third-tier raise and have it be $666. If I were the Dean, I would round that number off unless I wanted to antagonize the people with the worst raises. The top 2 tiers are full of zeroes, making them look neat — tidy sums. The line-up of 6s looks bad, and it seems like a mean joke, even if the Dean came upon it by chance. That doesn't make it a violation of civil rights however.
As to the number 727, it may not have biblical significance, but it does have the pleasant association with the Boeing 727 (and an obscure song by The Box Tops).
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The judge should have reduced it to $665 and thrown everyone out of his court.
So the Dean is not too bright either. Just like Hillary but in a different context. But credentialed well enough to be Dean.
Photo.
Time for a close inspection.
I was told by a retired commercial pilot that the 727 was a handful to fly. Lift the nose too high in your takeoff or landing flare and you risked an engine stall on the center engine, the one at the base of the stabilizer. Has the ring of truth.
I sort of agree with Kevin. Except the judge should reduce the salary to an even $600 -- more lovely zeroes.
It'd be cool if 666 really were Satanic.
But thanks to inflation the $666 was probably worth something like $664.23 after they got it all straightened out, so no problemo.
Could be worse. It could have been - probably should have been - $666.66. This particular number must surely have come from dividing (e.g.) $10,000 between 15 people, and then rounding off downwards to the nearest dollar. Whoever did the calculation didn't want to have to reach in his pocket and contribute his own money, even the few dollars needed to round off upwards and make it $667 each, but he also wanted to be generous and have as little left over in the fund as possible. I'm sure he's kicking himself now for not rounding down to $650 or $600.
Yup--faced with that situation give the third tier players $600 and add up all those $66 dollars and give the faculty a nice cocktail reception with sherry and biscuits.
The law prof in question sounds paranoid.
So this is what a law prof sues about, to the point of taking his claim about a Satanic raise to the circuit? It may have been a 'mean' if unintended joke, as AA suggests, but suing over such silliness is worse.
Remarkably petty, all of them. Glad to see that the legal academy is in good hands.
"People will pay lots of money to have 666 in their phone number or license plate because they think that it is very lucky."
I wonder if they'd pay $666?
As to the number 727, it may not have biblical significance, but it does have the pleasant association with the Boeing 727...
A couple thousand of those were manufactured, but only a handful remain in service. Apparently, they were expensive to buy and costly to operate compared to the now ubiquitous 737 which replaced it. And they were loud outside, despite the WhisperJet monicker, which saw them banned from some airports on noise abatement grounds. There's also the danger presented by the embedded engine which other Boeing and Airbus designs are more or less immune to — shed turbine blades flying round the passengers' heads infringing their personal freedoms.
And they used low-bypass turbofans, which have been almost universally replaced by more economical high-bypass types.
And the self-contained tail ramp which became mostly superfluous as more and more airports adopted concourse boarding ramps and a downright liability after D. B. Cooper used one to escape with $200 grand in ransom money. Yep, nothing but pleasant associations.
the $0 and $666 raises fell on pro-union and antiunion faculty members alike
Is that a Matthew 5:45 joke?
666 is the local prefix for St. Ignatius Catholic Church in San Francisco. Total coincidence, I'm sure. NOT.
What's the chance he gets any raise next year?
It's probably $666 because division resulted in 666.6666666 to infinity. Rounding properly would have resulted in $667. Someone intentionally rounded down. Maybe not to signify the number of the beast, but to save a few dollars. Richard Pryor probably stole the remainder.
I assume he brought his suit as a class action on behalf of all the lawprofs who got $666 raises?
May that be the biggest concern I face for the rest of my time on earth.....
Every third professor got $667.
Should have fired his ass! Clearly he has not the mental capacity to teach law.
The fact that the guy brought a f-ing lawsuit over this... ugh.
"Plaintiff will now approach the bench for a smack on the head."
@Quaestor, and don't forget that if you were a passenger who sat in the back, they were pretty noisy.
We have a couple of spray cans of WD-666. It's the all-purpose spray lubricant of The Beast.
Just one more reason why we need loser pays.
Bet the dean didn't get the biblical reference
and the prof who sued is an a$$
What's satanic is filing a lawsuit like this.
You're locked in a jail cell with Hitler, Stalin, and a lawyer. Through the bars the guard hands you a loaded pistol with two bullets. What do you do?
A: Shoot the lawyer. Twice.
Smart to call attention to getting a non-merit "catch all" raise of any kind.
Brilliant.
Maybe it should be revised to the secular 007...
By the way, is the division into tiers a creation of public sector drones?
I remember similar being place for my betters when I was a student worker at U-Mad. Very hard to get fired, yet tier raises for not getting fired.
What's not to like?
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