No show job

[jimbogumbo]

This was in Inside Higher Ed, but here is more detail. Seems like an episode of The Sopranos: https://www.moabtimes.com/articles/utah-state-university-now-looking-for-possible-fraud-at-all-satellite-campuses-after-employee-paid-157k-without-working/

[RatGuy]

Agner got his masters from Ohio state in 2012. His advisor? Jaime Cano, the man with whom Agner was living and to whom he supposedly reported at USU. It looks as if they have a long history of collaboration

[apl68]

That has got to be a serious embarrassment for the institution.

[larryc]

Years and years ago, when I was writing Teaching American History grants for other institutions, I pitched one to an old grad school friend who is teaching at a state school in the rust belt. He said he didn't want to because at his school there was an unwritten but very real requirement that every grant of over a million dollars include one no-show job for the patronage machine of a local political party.

I fear this kind of thing is way more common than any of us would like to think.

[Parasaurolophus]

No shade from me; everybody deserves a no-show job.

[bio-nonymous]

I have an essentially no-show grad school RA in my lab now. STU is lucky to put in 1/2 the time specified in the contract each week and is late almost every day STU does show up. STU has every excuse I have ever heard to justify this behavior (sick, had minor surgery and have to go to my follow-up during work time so I can't come in today at all, can I work from home today "just because", it's my relative's birthday and I have to travel out of state, my parents are coming in from out of town, I got a speeding ticket, I got a reckless driving ticket, I don't feel well from a prescription reaction, I didn't know I was supposed to come in today, I just remember I have a doctors appointment scheduled during my shift, etc. etc.)  One of the craziest ones is: "I just am having trouble getting up in the morning and can't get out of bed" WTF! STU is the one who ASKED for the early morning schedule...

Maybe I should relocate this post to the "Venting" thread!

[kaysixteen]

Fire him?

[bio-nonymous]

Not an easy thing to do in academia. The graduate research assistants are technically "at will" employees, but in practice HR and university policies make it nearly impossible to get rid of one because of things like this. Sigh...plus STU is very smart and good when they actually show up (and stay for their entire shift). I have been documenting everything just in case, but I would be told to have them undergo extensive remediation to change their behavior if I tried to do anything official, so I might as well suck it up and do that without kicking a hornets nest of political nonsense. I already went to my chair and ADR and do have their support (try everything to fix the situation and DOCUMENT is what I was told), but I hope to salvage this situation without blowing my top or committing career suicide. The thing is they are only "sort of" employees, and more student than employee,so they have lots of protections that employees wouldn't have. We have to take them at their word, and I don't want to be the doctor's (lawyer's, emergency room, mechanic's, etc) note police anyway. Oh well--I just need to make sure they get enough done to [at least mostly] justify the expense and not expect anything above the bare minimum.

[kaysixteen]

Thing is, this is September, and the academic year will last for months longer.  Lotsa pain for thee.

And, of course, if you at least have a Come to Jesus chat with him (he does not need to know how difficult it would be for you to sack him), you might scare him into better compliance with the norms and expectations you rightly have.  And maybe it would not hurt for such a chat to include verbiage to the effect that this sort of thing would get him canned at virtually any 'real world' job.  Indeed, could a professor (untenured) at your school get away with any such behavior?

[pgher]

Here, it is virtually impossible to do anything within a semester. We had a case where the student actively stated that they would not come to work and it still took six weeks to get rid of them. It is usually possible to not renew their appointment in the next semester.

Similarly for an adjunct, but even non-tenure-track or untenured faculty have some due process rights that would stretch into the next semester or beyond.

[Mobius]

There are a few faculty and staff at my place that are as close to no-show jobs as you can get.

[kaysixteen]

So if you cannot get rid of incompetent slacker TA at least during the semester, what do you do about his students?

[pgher]

So if you cannot get rid of incompetent slacker TA at least during the semester, what do you do about his students?

Every TA has a faculty supervisor who is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the work gets done--the lab gets taught, the work gets graded, etc.

[fizzycist]

Entire division sounds like a sham. Why does a small satellite state uni need to have a  that does consulting for small businesses? Sounds like the push for uni-run "economic development" is reaching its absurd logical end.

[Ruralguy]

yeah, when I saw this in grad school, the professor would do what they could to step in, and occasionally got research assistants to step in , but it was really rare.  At least in my program, it was a little easier to fire people (but this was also a while ago before unions existed for TAs or RAs) .  If a TA got enough warnings and such, they'd lose their funding. Same with an RA. Some would leave the program, but some would just bounce around a bit and eventually find someone who was more their style (a push over for allowing mediocre work, I guess).