1991 version of DEI robbed me of computer lab job

[Dan Druff]

Since I just told a weird albeit detailed story of a 1991 failure to land the hottest chick in the dorm despite a super promising initial encounter, I went through my memories of that year and decided to post a completely different, albeit also frustrating story.

I had no computer at school the first quarter I was there, so I walked around trying to find the computer lab. The main ones on campus were all the way on the other side, and were not convenient. I asked if my dorm had a computer lab, and I was told, "Well, kind of, but the computers are all in disrepair, and we closed it last year."

I told them I was very good with computers and might be able to fix them. They agreed to let me into the locked room to fuck around with the computers, and see if anything was salvageable.

Indeed, the computers were in bad shape. Some had bad components. Some had corrupt sectors on their hard drives. Some had corrupt operating systems. However, I determined that all of this was within my capabilities to fix, and without any cost to the school. I asked if they would let me take a crack at getting the place operational. They said yes, but warned me that they might not be able to pay me for any "work" I did. Essentially I had to agree that I was doing this voluntarily, but that they might be able to find some money for me if I were successful in getting it all working.

I went to work on the computers, and I fixed almost everything. I put a lot of time into it, and had to swap out a few parts from one computer to another in some cases, but when all of the smoke cleared, all of the computers except two were booting, running quickly, and running properly. I also made sure they all had working versions of the software which was supposed to be on there in the first place, which again had gone corrupt in some cases. Now the students of the dorm had a computer lab where they could do word processing, math assignments, and other stuff, and they could even print out what they completed, as I hooked everything up to the printer in the room.

I presented this to the director of the dorm, who profusely thanked me, and told me he would be reopening the lab for the remainder of the year. He also said he would be asking his bosses to cut a $200 check to me for my work on it, stating that it was a bargain given everything I accomplished.

Unfortunately, I got word a few weeks later that my $200 payment was



... and that his bosses deemed it voluntary work, outside of their budget. Ingrates. But I wasn't mad at him. I knew that he tried and went to bat for me, and the bottom line was that I agreed to do this without guarantee of any compensation.

About two months later, the same dorm director approached me as I was walking into the lobby.

"Hey Todd, I think I have good news for you," he said. "I noticed a lot of students were having trouble using the computers. I mean, they're working great, and I appreciate that, but some of them just haven't used a computer before, and keep needing help figuring out how to do things. So I proposed to my superiors that we created a new position for computer lab assistant, and I'd love to hire you for the job."

I told him I would be interested. He said, "The position hasn't been created yet, but it will be soon. But I guarantee, when the position is created, you're the first person I hire, no question. I know that doesn't pay you for what you already did, but at least you'll have something for all the help you gave us."

I told him I appreciated that, and to get a hold of me when the position was officially created.

Unfortunately, I didn't hear from him. We were starting to get closer to the end of the school year, and I asked what happened.

"Sorry for not getting back to you on this," he said. "Unfortunately because we're too close to the end of the year, this will be created starting next school year. Are you going to still be in the dorms next year?"

I said I probably would be.

"Okay, well if you're in the dorms in September, even if you're not in this one, come by and I'll make sure you get one of the positions. Sorry about all the delays and confusion here. I really want you to get something out of all this."


September came around, and I ended up not getting the job.

Why? Read on...

[Dan Druff]

September 1991 came around, which was my second year in the school and the dorms.

I was in a different building at this point, but I went back to the prior year's building to take them up on their offer to work in the lab.

I was disappointed to see that the head of that dorm was no longer in the position (not sure what happened to him), and a new person had been appointed -- a black woman around 40 years old.

I met with her and explained everything. She was immediately cold and unfriendly to me.

"I heard nothing about you being guaranteed that position. You need to apply with everyone else," she told me.

When I told her to ask the previous guy who had her job (if he was still reachable), or even his superiors who had been briefed about the entire situation with me, she declined.

"I don't need to ask anybody. I appreciate what you did for the lab. But again, we don't hand out automatic jobs here. You need to apply like everyone else."




I told her okay, and went forth with the application process. Inside I was burning up, given that this had been promised to me, and the entire lab wouldn't exist if not for my voluntary work there.

She then called me back in for an interview, which consisted of a bunch of banal questions which were irrelevant to working in a computer lab. She asked nothing about my technical capabilities, nor any questions regarding how I planned to help students who didn't understand computers well. Instead, it was shit like, "What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness? What are your professional goals?" Dumb.

Anyway, I went through the motions, and she promised to get back to me within 2 weeks regarding whether or not I was hired.

Two weeks passed, and I heard nothing. I went back in to ask, and I saw someone already working in the lab -- a white female around my age. So they did hire, just not me!

I asked the new dorm director what happened, and also why she hadn't gotten back to me.

"Yeah, sorry about not getting back to you. I was busy," she curtly answered. "Regarding the position, we decided to go with other applicants. I'm sorry, but I just felt they were a better fit for the position than you."

Better fit?! I was the one who knew the most about how the computers operated, because I was the one who restored the entire lab to working condition!

I asked her how these students could have possibly been better fits than the guy who set up the whole lab.

"I felt they were better qualified to give help to the students than you were," she answered.

Bullshit. None of her interview questions had anything to do with that. In fact, during the prior year, when I would use the lab, I was constantly helping out others having issues for free. I pointed this out during the interview, as one of many reasons I was a great fit for the job.

She could not explain any of this coherently, and simply told me her decision was made, and that I had to accept it.

Over the next few days, I walked past the lab to see who else was hired. I counted four different assistants, working different shifts. One was a white female, one was a black male, one was a black female, and one was a Hispanic male.

Uh oh! There were zero white (or Asian) males out of the 4 people hired! I started to suspect that she planned to make this a "diversity hire" project, which was why she was so immediately cold and pushing back so much when I told her about the previous guy promising me one of the positions.

I was furious about this, and felt like a fucking chump. This lab wouldn't have been open if it weren't for my voluntary work. Not only did they refuse to pay me, citing budgetary bullshit, but now I was fucked out of the job I was promised?!

I submitted a complaint to the head office managing the dorms, which did an investigation, and then called both me and the new director into a meeting.

I'll give you the conclusion next post...

[Dan Druff]

The meeting where they addressed my complaints seemed to go well at first. She really had no reasonable answers for anything.

I told her boss that she had refused to ask their office about the job having been previously promised to me.

She stammered and finally muttered, "Well yes, I mean, yeah, I believe you were probably promised it but... umm... I do things a bit differently and want everyone to apply, and it seemed to me you came to me feeling entitled to the job."

I responded, "Felt entitled? To something I was promised last year in exchange for the free work I did to get the lab running? How is it entitled to want a promise kept?"

She tried to answer, "Well, ummm.... you just said you were promised... uhh... but I had no way to know if you were or not."

I asked, "Did you refuse to contact the upper office to ask if I had been promised it?"

She reluctantly admitted that she had refused to do that, because she found it "irrelevant".


I then asked what reasons she had for not hiring me. She tried to claim that I "didn't seem as capable of helping other students in the lab as the ones we hired", but could not explain why. I asked what specifically led her to believe that, and she couldn't name anything, and answered, "Well that was just my impression from the interview."

I said, "During the interview, I stated that I was voluntarily helping students figure things out last year, for no pay at all. I gave you a way to verify that. Did you?"

She conceded that she had not attempted to verify it, and then said, "Look, we appreciate all you did last year, but this is a new year, and we are doing things a new way."


I asked her boss to justify to me why I wasn't hired in a lab I spent many hours setting up for free, for a job I had been promised just months prior.

"I understand all of your points, and I admit this wasn't handled well. If we had this conversation before any of the hirings took place, I would give you one of the jobs," he said. "But we have all the people we need there, and I can't remove any of them at this point. So I'm afraid this is a moot point, and I do wish there had been some better communication between you two, and maybe this wouldn't have happened."

I asked him how I could have possibly "communicated better", and he didn't really have a coherent answer.

I said that it seemed to me like this was personal. I said that she took an instant dislike to me when I came to her and said I had already been promised one of the positions, and that she purposely didn't give me the job because she didn't like my presumption that the job was already mine.

"That did bother me a little, but no, that was not the main reason. When you get older, I think you'll understand this better. Sometimes you can be qualified for a job, as you definitely were here, but don't get it because of factors outside your control. In this case, I felt it was important to give computer jobs to people underrepresented in that field, and that greatly informed a lot of the hires we made. The people we hired often would not have the opportunity to get jobs like this, so we wanted to give a priority to qualified candidates like that, and simply did not have room to hire you in addition. I am sorry you feel hurt by this, but it was not personal."


Sadly, I believed her. She was angry at me not because I felt "entitled" to the position, but rather because she already came in with a plan to hire women and people of color for these lab assistant positions, and in walked White Male saying he already had one of the spots locked up.

I asked if they could at least compensate me for the work I did the previous year. I was again told to kick rocks.

I was only 19, and I walked out of the meeting feeling completely screwed and betrayed by the system. No good deed goes unpunished. "Diversity, equity, and inclusion" pushed me out of a job I was promised in a lab I created, about 30 years before the term itself would come into common use.

I also learned right then a harsh lesson regarding academia and some of the awful people who reside there.

I forgot about this for decades, until just thinking about it today.

[Jayjami]

You should have accused her of being anti-Semitic!

[sonatine]

[Sloppy Joe]

Brothers,

While many of you have privately requested/demanded my input here I am sitting this one out.

[1dollarboxcar]

it's actually called affirmative action back in the day... another racist law that was set in place to hire the " minorities "

copy and pasted from Wikipedia: In the United States, affirmative action consists of government-mandated, government-approved, and voluntary private programs granting special consideration to groups considered or classified as historically excluded, specifically racial minorities and women.[1][2] These programs tend to focus on access to education and employment in order to redress the disadvantages[3][4][5][6][7] associated with past and present discrimination.[8] Another goal of affirmative action policies is to ensure that public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.[9]

As of 2024, affirmative action rhetoric has been increasingly replaced by emphasis on Diversity, equity, and inclusion and nine states explicitly ban its use in the employment process.[10][11] The Supreme Court in 2023 explicitly rejected affirmative action regarding race in college admissions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. The Court held that affirmative action programs "lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today"

John F. Kennedy in 1961 actually implemented " affirmative action " by executive order....

[GrenadaRoger]

In this case, I felt it was important to give computer jobs to people underrepresented in that field, and that greatly informed a lot of the hires we made.

Meanwhile, giving the best service to the students using the lab is of no concern.

[Dan Druff]

The entire story was a microcosm of a lot of things wrong with academia at the time, which still applies today:

1) Overly bureaucratic structure which wastes a ton of money on bullshit, but can’t authorize small, highly efficient discretionary spending

2) “Diversity” agenda which takes precedence over all else

3) Resentment and punishment against those getting the way of the diversity agenda, even if it happens inadvertently

4) Lack of keeping promises/commitments

[OK2]

Brothers,

While many of you have privately requested/demanded my input here I am sitting this one out.

stop having private conversations on the internet and spend more time with you family

[tigerpiper]

And you're still working for free here, so I guess it didn't discourage you too much.

I think the main point is bureaucracy, not reverse racism but you were there, not me.

[Dan Druff]

And you're still working for free here, so I guess it didn't discourage you too much.

I think the main point is bureaucracy, not reverse racism but you were there, not me.

It's both.

The bureaucracy occurred during the first school year, where I got a dilapidated computer lab completely working again, and they couldn't find $200 in their discretionary budget to give me for it (or any amount of money, for that matter!)

Then the bureaucracy was also responsible for dragging its feet with creating the new lab assistant position, which I would have been instantly granted had it occurred with the original guy in charge.

However, the DEI shit was what ultimately prevented me from getting the job. The new director was aware of the fact that I had gotten the whole lab working for free, plus had been promised the job, but didn't give a shit. Giving all four positions to "diverse" candidates was more important. It wasn't even reverse racism, because one of the people who got a position was white -- a white female. It was just the war on white males in the world of academia, which began around that point in time, and now today is occurring more than ever.

What struck me was the arrogance of the new director. She didn't just sneakily award the positions to non-white-males after I'd been promised the job. She actually resented me for walking into her office and repeating what I had been promised -- even know she knew it to likely be true. To her, I was just an entitled white male looking to be handed a position automatically. The facts of the situation didn't matter.

It's a microcosm of the flaws of DEI in general.