No matter how plainly an obligation, duty or prohibition is enumerated, there will be managers who will deny their applicability to the most obvious facts. (I can't seem to get Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch out of my head — "it's restin'... it's stunned...it's pinin' for the fjords". Nice plumage, though.)
Disputing the obvious is a tactic older than industrial relations itself. The Python's sketch will be 40 this year. And denial is certainly not new in the university sector. What I think is new, however, is the seeming willingness of some senior academic officers (i.e. Deans and above), to play the game. (Vice-Chancellors, happily, still seem to refrain.)
I haven't noticed an apologetic demeanor — sometimes seen in human resources staff. It's as if it's a proof of authority to be able to bring reality itself to heel.
This is my very subjective impression, but it seems to me that while only a few years ago senior officers sought to remain above the industrial fray; the current trend (albeit a shallow slope) seems to be in the other direction.
Previously insulated by the protections of WorkChoices and other regulations of the sector, some may have failed to notice that, occasionally, those who play the denial card find a inconvenient bump at the end. "Truth will out"?
Sometimes.
At a picnic nobody cares that you're a
four-star chef de cuisine —
if you're the guy that forgot the sandwiches.
—Yllib Ybnad (b. 1948)
