My Glamorous Week in Administration: Plumbers and Health Inspectors, Oh My!

I have read the posts of academics who are convinced that administrators spend the bulk of their time thinking up ways to make the faculty miserable.  While that may be true of some administrators at bigger schools, as an administrator much of my time is spent trying to get systems back to working properly.  When I think back on my past week, I think about plumbers and IT and the inspector from the health department.

On Wednesday, I made this Facebook post:

"Yesterday, in my official duties as an administrator, I wrote an e-mail that ended with this plea: "If possible, could you please schedule a plumber or R____ to come to campus tomorrow? We are a campus of mostly females, and we need as many toilets working as possible." We were down to 1.5 working toilets, thus my desperate tone.

Today the plumber arrived and suggested that we hold the handle down for 45 seconds to attain a full flush. I refrained from saying, "Is that what they teach you in plumbing school these days?" Instead I said, "Yes, we've been doing that."

Then he took out all the toilet innards and replaced them. And now I don't have to hold the handle down for 45 seconds or pull on a chain inside the tank or be prepared to back away quickly when the toilet doesn't drain.

When I was in grad school, years ago, they did not offer a course in The Palimpsest of Plumbing and Poetics. Or a course in toilet repair. Alas."

Getting the toilets operational took more time than non-administrators might imagine.  Faculty seem to think that administrators have vast power, but I don't have the authority to pick up the phone and summon a plumber.  There's a person up the college ladder who is in charge of operations and the landlord to consider.

Yesterday I arrived at campus to find out that only me and the library assistant were there, and for awhile it was quiet, although other people did join us.  But it was not to last.

We had a surprise visit from the health department.  We are a facility licensed to deal with biomedical waste, so it was less of a surprise and more of an unscheduled inspection.  When the very nice health inspector realized it had been over 30 days since our last waste pick up, she said that she wouldn't waste either of our time, since that would be a violation that would trigger another visit.

She'll be back in 2 weeks, so we have time to have our waste taken away and for me to find the receipts and documents she'll need to see.  I did feel a moment of sadness.  Once we had an Allied Health Program chair who was in his office every day, and the visit would have gone more smoothly.

But those times are not these times.  I felt a moment of gratitude for that department chair who put together the notebook that I did find later in the day.  And I also felt grateful that I am not the one responsible for the reason that the health inspector will need to return.  I am not the one who decided to save money by not having enough pick ups of our biomedical waste.

So yes, when I read the social media rantings about the lives that administrators have, I smile bemusedly.  If only I had the resources that people imagine and the power to deploy those resources.  But most days, I'm grateful that the plumbing holds together and that we can all access the internet.