03-27-2023, 05:30 PM
This is possibly tangential, but IMO it is illustrative of the larger "administration" issue. The trees that fell on Alpine road were growing on Stanford land. Another one fell today and blocked a lane. I would imagine the family of the man who was killed will file a major lawsuit. How many people does Stanford have in the facilities department? Plenty. Somebody was undoubtedly responsible for making sure things like this didn't happen by examining the trees and removing those that were even a potential danger. They failed. Worse still, IMO, after four trees fell and one caused a death, Stanford didn't do anything. Another tree fell today, fortunately killing nobody, but that is just luck. Obviously there is a major issue there that should have been addressed, even if belatedly. Is anybody going to get fired? I doubt it.
Hiring a bunch of people that don't actually do anything is a typical bureaucratic method to increase you power, prestige, and salary. If nobody evaluates the performance of these organizations and makes them justify their existence with something other than verbiage, this is what you get. Then people wonder why nobody trusts Stanford when they propose some construction project. There is no possible excuse for this situation.
Hiring a bunch of people that don't actually do anything is a typical bureaucratic method to increase you power, prestige, and salary. If nobody evaluates the performance of these organizations and makes them justify their existence with something other than verbiage, this is what you get. Then people wonder why nobody trusts Stanford when they propose some construction project. There is no possible excuse for this situation.