I Hate These People*

Have you ever said something so stupid that it pretty much stays with you for your whole life and you cringe every time you think about it? Here is the stupidest thing I have ever said on this blog:

First, UCF punished an administrator for stealing and now eleven UCF administrators are turning down $469,000 worth of raises. If this keeps up*, I’ll have to change the name of this blog to UCF Loves Doing the Right Thing.

* It won’t.

A few weeks later, I realized my mistake thanks to Jim Gilkeson:

The final straw? That secret bonus plan for UCF's top 11 administrators? President Hitt and his VPs didn't turn down the bonuses (as they claimed in a press release that was circulated one day before a television report about them was going to air), they merely deferred the bonuses to a later date. Our senior administrators still think they deserve over $450,000 in bonuses. Outrageous. They say there’s no money for raises. They make threats of pay cuts. Yet our senior administration still plans to pay itself half a million in bonuses – as soon as it won’t be a public relations nightmare to do so. It’s bad enough when this sort of behavior drives multi-billion dollar financial institutions into bankruptcy; it’s unbelievable that it would happen at a tax-payer supported, public university.

Gilkeson was right:

President John Hitt is among nearly a dozen top administrators at University of Central Florida in line to receive thousands of dollars in performance-based bonuses this year that were postponed from last year because of the bad economy.

Trustees voted to go ahead with the payouts totaling about $289,000, including interest, during a telephone conference meeting Thursday.

Later today or early tomorrow, I will post a list of the selfish, useless administrators who are getting these bonuses. It won’t do much, but at least when they google themselves, they will be directed to this blog.

* From a reader email about this article. I feel the same.