I sign my name a lot. I am not famous. My signature is of no value to a collector. I sign my name because I am an administrator.
Sometimes I read what I sign. Really, I do. This sounds logical, but actually reading what I sign often gives me reason to pause and wonder how it is that I or anyone else could really know what I am signing to certify.
Some examples:
1) When someone drives somewhere and asks for compensation for the miles they have accumulated, I must indicate that they were not in the car with someone else also collecting mileage. I understand the logic of the policy. It just assumes a lot to think that I would know whether or not the policy has been followed.
2) Then there is my current favorite – I must indicate that a trip that someone takes is beneficial to my institution. This is what those of us in the social sciences would describe as “poorly operationalized”. Again, I get the unspoken problem – the potential concern is that someone goes to San Francisco to eat in fine restaurants and see the sites rather than attend the conference. The problem is the lack of effort to just say what one can and cannot do. Beneficial is a pretty difficult word to translate unless one is heading off to pick up a donation – most would likely agree that this was beneficial to the institution. I tend to see things a little more broadly. Heck, I think sending someone to Florida after several months of North Dakota winter might be great for their morale and hence a benefit to their productivity.
I have been thinking what might actually be necessary to assure compliance and the recent revelations of cell phone tracking have given me some ideas. I think faculty members should wear those tracking ankle bracelets when leaving town. If the satellites show two blips in the same car, we know that we have a clear violation. If we see a blip outside of the convention centers between 9-12 and 1-5, we also know that rules have been broken.
I must be getting too old for this job. We used to trust people and give them half the cost of the trips they took. The money commitment has not changed, just the trust.