Bring Your Own Mandarin Interpreter

What is it with people who assume others have all the free time in the world? Is there a coterie of carefree people like this somewhere giving the wrong impression for the rest of us? Some group of people saying, "I don't have enough going on, you wouldn't have a fairly pointless task for me to do, by any chance? I don't care what it is at long as it's annoying and takes up a lot of time."

So a friend of mine, let's call her Dr. Eminent (Em for short) teaches here at Underfunded U. They're trying to recruit more Asian students to come to Underfunded, because, obviously, Asian students pay out-of-state tuition and bring in a lot of money. This leads me to remember the student who was so bad that I went and looked up his admissions record; I simply could not believe he'd been admitted to the university. He was beyond illiterate. Anyway, it showed that he had a D average in high school -- but he was from Hong Kong! Out-of-state tuition! I'm sure it was a coincidence.

Anyway, the recruitment office was holding a big recruitment fair for potential Asian students. This was on campus; apparently they're wealthy enough to fly in for these things. So the office asked Em to do a couple of hour-long presentations to show potential students the glory that is Underfunded U. They did not offer to pay her. She, whose enimence has led her to value time management, a.k.a. caginess, said, "Are you paying?” So they offered $100 per session. This is a minor miracle, since this is actually the only instance I have ever heard of where the university offered to pay anyone for non-curricular work. We all do ten or twenty things per year for no pay. But maybe they knew this was really above and beyond the call of duty. Note that they only offered once pushed. Considering the hassle of preparing a whole new lecture, finding the place, hanging around afterwards to meet & greet, etc., this apparently impressive rate goes down to something like $20 an hour (which is less than local nurses get paid, I might note), but okay, it's something, it's a nice gesture, we all want to be team players, even though this whole enterprise is going to eat up ten hours in one week and it's not like we're all rolling in free time, but she agreed. And then they instructed, "And please bring your own Mandarin interpreter."

What the *$#@? Where does your average person find a Mandarin interpreter? Em is in a regular liberal-arts department, nothing to do with Asia. How much time would it take the average person to find a Mandarin interpreter? And remember that this has to be a Mandarin interpreter willing to work free, unless Em is going to pony up out of her own pocket. It's like a pyramid scheme of exploitation. The recruitment office exploits the faculty member, and then the faculty member finds someone to exploit in turn. Meanwhile the whole dang thing takes a ton of time and energy, and neither the faculty member nor the hapless Mandarin-speaker is finishing any work, relaxing, or saving the quagga.

Em hoisted her petard to the sticking-place, or whatever the metaphor is, and informed the office that she would not be able to bring her own Mandarin interpreter. Then not enough potential students signed up for the thing, so everything was called off.

Then the university sent around a notice asking all faculty to donate money to the university.

As Truman Capote once said, Don't let me commence.