Tom Towaier/I)X
Inconvenience department alternative to work
7 may live badly, brut at least /
don't have to work hard to do it."—
A Slacker
Get a job? Why? Give up, and
slack.
I did. I’m working a part-time
job and eating well as a part-time
student. It’s wnat I know best. I’ve
been doing it for five years now. I
started with work on a farm for
several summers when I started
college.
Gary
Longsine
I realized the first summer that I
could never make a life of it. My
complexion is so fair that I burn
endlessly from direct sun. A tan
won’t happen for this cal. I wore a
straw hat to save the tops of my
ears and my face from permanent
damage.
i pui mai nai inrougn neu. u goi
wet nearly every day as I trudged
- through the morning dew and arti
ficial mud to check the wells. One
day. while pulling a small disc
behind a tractor, tne wind swept
my hat away. 1 looked back iust in
time to see it fly directly under the
disc. I thought it was dead for sure,
but I stopped to investigate.
The hat suffered a big crease
through it, but I knocked it against
my knee to beat the dust out, and
put it back on my head. Sometime
later, another gust of wind swiped
it from my head and plunged it
under the disc. 1 must have plowed
that hat a half-dozen limes that day.
Each time 1 retrieved it from
behind the disc, it became more
flexible and comfortable. The hat
and 1 became good friends after
that. Wc knew that we wouldn’t
abandon each other.
Halfway through the summer
the hat, in tatters already and soaked
in water from the Nemaha River,
fell off my head, and my dog Daisy
stepped on it. Weakened from a
hard summer, the hat gave in. A
hole, roughly the size of a collie
paw, wounded my hat irreparably.
I sent my hat to a good retire
ment home. It hangs, respected
and loved, on the wall of a friend
whose dad was a farmer and wore
straw hats.
Since then, I’ve sold my soul to
rent-to-own, and done a variety of
truly mundane and trivial things for
money. Trivial jobs have advan
tages.
They contribute to low-stress
lifestyles by giving you a way to
make money without using your
brain power. Excess neural capac
ity can be directed to pondering
moral issues raised in philosophy
classes or coffee houses.
But I’ve never had a perfect job.
I know they exist. The campus
abounds with evidence of a super
secret, extremely well-funded, and
widely-denied Department of Stu
dent Inconvenience (DSI). That
would be the perfect job.
That is one of the few depart
ments on campus that will receive
budget increases this year, when
overall university spending will be
cut. The analysis department of the
DSI rivals that of the CIA or RAND
Corporation.
i ne genius oi is respunsiuic
for determining that the parking
problem on campus should be
treated as a parking image prob
lem. Then, after spending tons of
tuition and tax dollars on a lengthy
study by a committee, the study
can be shelved and ignored.
I would have loved to have
been the guy who writes the pro
posal on how to change the park
ing problem into an image prob
lem. He probably got a bonus for
that one. •
The men and women of DSI,
like those of the Washington-based
cloak-and-dagger counterpart, of
ten feel badly Decause people only
find out about the things that get
screwed up. They don’t get credit
for success. Butl’vestumbledupon
one of their phenomenal success
stories.
DSI brought in special agents
several years ago to deal with the
problem of the Office of Scholar
ships and Financial Aid. It seems
that a small group of radical stu
dents got wind of the existence of
DSI and its influence with that
office, and started making waves.
Oh, they didn’t tell anyone about
DSI — who would believe such a
conspiracy theory? Instead, they
i
got people fired up about the lines
that went clear out of the building
and lasted all semester.
People decided that they had
been trampled enough and started
writing letters to the office, the
paper, Regents, state senators and
their parents, complaining about
the lines.
In a brilliant maneuver, having
already used up the “image prob
lem” strategy with this particular
office, DSI’s special agents came
through. They moved the ineffi
ciency from out in the hall to inside
the office, behind closed doors.
I would have loved to have been
paid to think up that one. Imagine
the team spirit in the Department of
Student Inconvenience.
“Hey, Joe, I got it! We ditch the
lines! Let’s just make sure that the
students don’t have access to any
one with the authority to answer
questions. In fact, students shouldn’t
be able to do anything but hand in
completed forms and make ap
pointments for no sooner than three
weeks in the future!”
“Great idea, Sue. I never would
have thought of getting rid of the
lines! It’s such an integral part ol
every plan we’ve ever had. I never
would have thought of it. I think
we should set the phones to auto
matic busy-signal, too.”
Of course, Dy going public with
my knowledge of DSI, I’ve put
myself at risk. I could be targeted
for special arrangements.
My student ID card will break in
half about three days before gradu
ation, and I won’t be able to do any
of the last-minute things that they
will make sure I have to do.
The library will send me over
due notices for books I’ve never
heard of. The records office will
forget that I exist, but nevertheless,
I’ll be billed for some extraordinary
tuition oversight and a late fee.
Housing will bill me for all the
times I studied in the snack bars
when I didn’t live in the dorms.
If only I couldget a job with DSI,
then life would be good. I’d be an
insider. I could park right next to
my super-secret office and use the
super-secret express elevator.
And I would always have a place
to hang my hat.
Longs!nc is a senior international
affairs and economics major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
THE EQUATION FOR A SUCCESSFUL
ORGANIZATION:
Information + resources x (services) -- networking =
SUMM-IT UP! at the 1991 Student
Organization Orientation Summits!
DATE TIME LOCATION
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sources, and policies for student organization members and activities.
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This is your chance to share information with other student
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