Mike Adler's view on administration

Op my pa se lessenaar was n bordjie wat gelees het: "n Deurmekaar Lessenaar is die Merk van n Genie." In daai geval is ek die slimste ou in ons departement. Met dit as agtergrond, hier is iets deur Mike Adler wat ek nogal geniet het:

As every Australian Academic knows all too well, there are three things that we are supposed to do, Research, Administration and Teaching, of which the most rewarding financially is administration. We used to promote has-beens to do administrative chores and to increase their pay to compensate for the loss of prestige that goes with being a drudge. The laws of supply and demand have ensured that drudges now have the prestige, and the power to order things the way that drudges like them. My position on administrative chores is that I do what the Mathematics Department requires no matter how much valuable time it wastes on bizarre and pointless ritual designed only to placate meddling bureaucrats with an inadequate grasp of their own ineptitude. At the same time I point out the folly of it, vehemently. The only alternative is to join the bastards, which would leave me too full of self-disgust to function.
There are some honest administrators around who have come to it from honourable motives. I have met three, and there may be others. Two of them even have a sense of humour. They are usually very well organised but not very creative. Well, if everybody was like me the world would fall apart over the weekend, and an honest administrator who really works for the public good is a jewel to be treasured. We look at each other through the bars, each wondering which side is the zoo. I am prepared to admit that I need them, I can only hope they feel the same way about me. I doubt if those in Canberra do.
By contrast, what I think of the blinkered reptilian scum who get their jollies by working their way into politics in pursuit of status, prestige and the joys of pushing other people around, should not be put on a website which may be read by the young and innocent. To the blinkered reptilian scum I say: `Beware. Do not mess with me, or I will eat your eggs'.

The quote comes from here.