At our university, there are many
hard-working individuals who have labored for years to do the business
of the students and the school. As in any large company, occasionally,
the odd “clinker” employee is hired and proceeds to become that one
rotten apple in the basket.
The cartoon presented here was
written after I had actually called, long-distance, from Michigan to
check on a bundle of student aid that was due. It was then that I crossed
paths with “Kathy” the vapor-headed rotten apple. She actually did exactly
what the cartoon portrays, she placed me on “hold” and then went to
the mall! I discovered this after waiting for a protracted time on “hold”,
then hanging up and calling back asking for Kathy. “Oh,” the student
assistant on the other end of the telephone line told me, “she’s gone
for the day... she went to the mall.” Of course, she did this to exactly
the wrong person.
Unknown to me, Kathy had been
employed in the financial aid office for several weeks and her sluffing-off
antics, among other things, were driving the rest of the staff absolutely
nuts. Often she left the others in the office to tend to work that she
had left un-done, or simply screwed up. By the time that the cartoon
appeared, it was the last nail in Kathy’s gallows, and she was fired
on the day that the strip was published- much to the delight of the
other staff members in the financial aid office.
Later I was told by several members
of the financial aid office staff, at least one of whom had the strip
cut out and taped to her door, that they all had gotten a major kick
out of the strip. They all thought that the strip’s last words, “So
long Kathy”, were very fitting considering that it appeared on the same
day that she was “out the door”.
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