A waste of Money...

[berkleystudios]

***RANT WARNING*** but a topic that needs discussing

I am still in college (3rd year) and I cant help but notice the absolute waste that happens in universities. the focus of this will be one gear (those still in good working order, outdated and not working but easily fixed, or those that can be scraped for parts) but can be applied to any facet of a university. i am a recording tech in one of the hall and we have gear hidden in every corner of the building, some old tape machines ( out dated but in my opinion should still be in use for a class of some sort) old compressors that are not the best but could be used to teach the concepts to newer students, and high quality gear that the professors lock up and greedily treat as there own and hide under the blanket that they are protecting the gear from being damaged from inexperienced users (ie the students paying thousands to gain experience by attending the university).

now to some of my professors defense, i know the budget is limited and gaining new gear can be a process, but when they take gear home for personal use, it becomes unprofessional.

now for the gear that could be sold that really has no use for us they hoard, because the department bought it and if they sell it the university gets the money not the department, and i can understand why they dont want to sell the pieces, but it is a public university that receives tax pay dollars as well as tuition for the school, if i knew another department was doing that i would be very annoyed, because they are raising the cost for everyone else.

and then there is the trash, broken desks with rack rails, old racks from the 70s with transformers that convert unbalanced to balanced ect. pretty much stuff that is junk but that people like us can reuse. But no touchy. if you touch even uncle sam's trash you can get federally screwed. really over trash?

now you can replace university and the concepts are still the same. look at the waste going on in front of us people. its amazing. all this spending and no one takes the time to go " hey we can still use this part" nope. its all just trash. its very sad.

so thats the end of my rant. thanks for reading .

 

[emrr]

Even when no one cares, the accountants still do, and big companies/schools/govt have to throw things in dumpsters generally or it gets really complicated for the accountant.  Prohibitively so.  I have been at TV stations that were putting everything in dumpsters.  It was fine for me to take things back out of the dumpster.....once they'd been thrown in, but they couldn't give them to me while they were still sitting on the loading dock, in good shape, and working.

 

[zebra50]

Universities (and their dumpsters) can be great places for picking up old junk, but you probably need a long terms strategy. I spend nearly 20 years in universities and have helped 'recycle' everything from capacitors and oscilloscopes, through to enough 2" cladding to insulate out our entire studio! (We also got our studio partition wall from a pub, but that is another story!).

A guy I know got a Myford 7 lathe that was being offloaded from a

You need a long term strategy for this kind of thing. Start by making friends with the people that matter. That is the technical staff, cleaners, janitors, porters, admin, stores and so on. These are the guys and girls who make your department run, and who will have to take stuff out to the bins or arrange for its disposal.

Learn their names and smile and say 'Good morning' in the corridors. Many students, and particularly academics, walk around with their head in the clouds / up their arses, and don't even bother to say hello. I'm sure you know the types!

Once you get to know the right people and they know you, you will get an occasional nod and a wink  to say that there is 'some good stuff going out to the bins today'. As EMRR says it will probably have to pass through the bin first.

Stewart

 

[JohnRoberts]

I see your rant and raise you...

I'm shocked..  : : A university not running a tight ship...

The gear in dumpsters, is more likely if the university is a for-profit corporation, since equipment shows up on the asset side of the balance sheet, and destroying or discarding those assets, can reduce taxable profit, dollar for dollar (reduced by any previous depreciation write-downs of the equipment).

The "business" of universities has been distorted in recent years by much easier college lending standards. Just like too-easy home loans caused home price inflation (housing bubble), too-easy college loans, has led to colleges increasing their prices, and expanding acceptance to accommodate the increasing population of students that can now "afford" college.

I worry that this too easy lending, will saddle a large group of young adults, just starting out in a tough job market with a large debt hanging over their future to pay off. A classic case of government confusing association with cause. They observed that home owners appeared to have better lives, so they tried to provide home ownership to everybody who thought they wanted to. That didn't end well and we are still paying for the distortions that caused.

The association with attending college and earning more money over their lifetime, was the justification for expanding college loans. They mean well but just like home ownership was not the right answer for everybody, I suspect the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for college degrees may be severely diluted, and leave us with another debt hangover.

How do these young adults form new households and afford to buy homes, if they are still saddled with huge college loan debt? This too will not end well for many, but hopefully will not cause another general economic collapse.

JR
 

 

[berkleystudios]

I see your rant and raise you...

haha

The association with attending college and earning more money over their lifetime, was the justification for expanding college loans. They mean well but just like home ownership was not the right answer for everybody, I suspect the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for college degrees may be severely diluted, and leave us with another debt hangover.

How do these young adults form new households and afford to buy homes, if they are still saddled with huge college loan debt? This too will not end well for many, but hopefully will not cause another general economic collapse.

JR
 

a good point. the "american dream" has become distorted and the dream has become a belief that it is a right to have a home or a college degree so that they can get far in life or be successful. what happened to hard working people? people that fight for what they want and willing to do what it takes to get it? people that don't rely on he government for hand outs to move up in life, because when you do that have you really advanced at all?

I think it will be 20 years before we begin to work out this economy. its so far in shambles and there are too many far left and far right tearing it apart. there is no common views any more. i think it may take a to reformation of our government and the way it handles things to things to have it fixed. but i think even that is still years down the line. the people riding the free wave will never come off it untill the money dries up, and it will....

 

[JohnRoberts]

a good point. the "american dream" has become distorted and the dream has become a belief that it is a right to have a home or a college degree so that they can get far in life or be successful. what happened to hard working people? people that fight for what they want and willing to do what it takes to get it? people that don't rely on he government for hand outs to move up in life, because when you do that have you really advanced at all?

I just saw a stat for college loan debt and it has increased 65% since 2008.

The American dream is about the opportunity to be a success. It still requires effort. All these undocumented workers who came here illegally are here for that opportunity. 

I think it will be 20 years before we begin to work out this economy.

It should have turned around already, but all the government helping is creating a drag. We need 4-5% GDP growth to get reasonable employment levels and start paying down our public debt. (Last quarter near 0% growth and approx $1T new deficit).

its so far in shambles and there are too many far left and far right tearing it apart.

Our founders never intended for it to be so easy to pass more laws. They were the original keep it simple crowd, with decision making authority reserved for local government where it makes sense. There is an illusion the the federal government can somehow give us stuff... Every penny they spend, they take from us in taxes, or borrow in our name, for us or our children to pay back. 

there is no common views any more.

Never were...

i think it may take a to reformation of our government

I don't see any major fault with our system, while there seem to be some new bending or forgetting of the rules. Our founders must be spinning in their graves at the way bills are passed these days without our legislators even reading them.

A new test of the "rules" involves the president stacking the NRLB with recess appointments, when congress was not actually in recess. While the executive decides "who" to appoint, congress has the right to approve or reject (inform and consent). A lower court has challenged the "not really recess" appointments, making over a year of rulings by that panel subject to being voided if/when the supreme court reviews the lower court decision. 

and the way it handles things to things to have it fixed.

I see a positive feedback loop, where all the government spending and involvement with the private sector has attracted huge money from interest groups to lobby and control that government spending and regulation. IMO the only way to break the run away feedback loop is to reduce the spending and private sector intervention.

but i think even that is still years down the line. the people riding the free wave will never come off it untill the money dries up, and it will....

I would rather reduce the run away spending before we run out of money (actually before people stop lending to us). We ran out of our own money long ago.

JR

 

[PRR]

> waste that happens in universities

As a student, 4 decades back, I had the same thoughts.

Instead of a rant, I changed from being a student to being the music technician.

I thought I could help other students get more from their education than I had got.

It was the right thing to do, for me, at that time.

There were many years when I fretted that I'd taken $20K of salary and done only $10K of good.

And that my overlords might figure this out.

Most of them didn't, and I finally jack-knifed myself into getting $49K pay for maybe $30K of good. (To totally replace all that I did would have cost much more than $49K; but they would just go-without most of that.)

There ARE reasons why schools do bad things. The reasons may be wrong, but the process is VERY complex.

Parts of it can be understood "personally".

You know GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome)? Profs and Deans have it too. Even more than regular people. An entrepreneur can take more work and use the money for GAS. Profs and Deans can't, they are on salary (if they moonlight, they sure won't use that cash to supply the school). GAS requires long struggle against VERY-tight budgets or unlikely grants.

The GAS factor lasts for decades. Partly because they get new Gear so rarely. It's a trophy. Kept on the shelf and only brought out for important events (when Provosts or Donors are in the house).

Another real problem: Do-ers versus teachers. In the real world, do-ers are sometimes seen to have value. In Academia, actually doing something is low-class. If something really must be done, tell a grad student to do it in spare time or lose their stipend.

(I got my job with GAS money. They GAS-ed a synthesizer studio which was worth much more than a year's pay for a technician. Somehow they thought to pad-up the budget to make the studio look more important. The first incumbent was disinclined to the work and also got in a snit with the Chair. I happened to be friends with everybody at the time he left.)

It's not just the department. The University has an Inventory Department. Everything over $500 goes on a list. Every year I had to initial the list next to each item in my care (and point-finger when it was someone else's job). At random times the Inventory assistant might show up in my door and ask to see specific items.

Getting rid of your own stuff is always a struggle. See recent thread here "Should I keep it or sell it?" When "I" is a whole bureaucracy which has to keep its nose apparently-clean and cover its butt, disposing of possibly valuable stuff is a Royal Pain.

One of my early "Ooops!" was: I had inherited this stone-age tape duplicator, and was going to dumpster it, but didn't. Soon after the Inventory guy showed up with a slip for some strangely described equipment, which I finally realized was that danged duper. I was so glad I could take him around the hall and point at the ugly SOB.

I also asked about the proper process for authorized disposal. Argh!!! Because taxpayers like John assume all university bookkeeping is bogus, there is a Process and a Procedure. _I_ have to drag the junk to Surplus Warehouse in the farthest corner of campus. Fill out forms. With the original Inventory Number. In principle, the Surplus Dept *must* attempt to realize the maximum value for my crap. Stuff like 7 year old Dells goes on a shelf for public sale. When we abandoned the SynClavier we (the music dept) had to advertise, inside then outside, solicit proposals and bids, forward them on to Surplus, await a decision. It took a year. In the end it went to a former student, which is what we suspected in the first place.

Ahhhhhhh...........  I left but I'm still too close to it.

After 33 years of this ever-increasing bumph I took a short pension and left all that behind. I'm hardly ashamed of all I did, but I SURE am glad that partisan politics had given me a delayed return for years of under-pay.

(What happend: state politicians thought they should have a pension. The numbers would not work. So they expanded the pool to state employees. But put a much higher Vesting threshold for roadworkers than for legislators! A lot of low-level employees paid into the system a few years but left with no or small pension rights. Nearly any politico who could be re-elected once and avoid prison got full pension. Of the university people hired the year I started, less than 10% made it to the 25-year lunch. And now the state wants to break the promise and cut our checks. It's a brutal demeaning life. Be kind to low-level university people.) (The Professors are on a totally different pension system, through AAUP.)

 

[BertH]

oh, don't tell me. I'm in my final year at a film school here in Belgium, good school, no real complaints, but every few years, they throw away classic gear, even in working condition.

They get gear from other companies, in a somewhat vague way, as they are not allowed to donate gear to schools, for some judicial reason...
and they throw away gear "just because", it's not really the teachers that do that, it's more the bureaucracy/administration that just sees a pile of old crap, when in fact, there are great Nagra's there.

we've seen it all, Nagra III's, IV's, camera's, classic compressors and other outboard gear, editing tables, studio tripods (sachtlers etc), and really nice classic things that we'd all love to have.

They just dissapear. and no one even asks the students, nor the teachers.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It's always good to get some information from behind the walls. I've never paid much attention or concern for university accounting, I just follow the macro economic trends, like how increasing credit availability for college loans (up 60% or so since 2008) increases prices all else constant.

----

On the subject of gear, there is another motivation for university GAS in that potential students will gauge the strength of a recording  school program by the high profile gear that that they see..  At the same time, manufacturers benefit from getting their gear seen and used by students, to hopefully create long term future customers.

So the gear used has less to do with how well it works, than the popular perception. This can cut both ways for classic legacy gear, but I expect more "good" stuff gets discarded than not because it sin't actively advertised and marketed..

JR

 

[sr1200]

As someone who works for a govt agency that gets millions of dollars worth of equipment every year i can say that it has confounded me for the last decade + as to why govt cant sell (they can more on that later) or donate unused eqipment.

First, donations: it was explained to me that they cant donate the items since they were paid for by tax dollars and simply giving it to charity "A"  might be a conflict of either some special interest group or some political group... Still not a good reason, but atleast a reason. I cant count how much stuff we "dumpstered" over the years ). We were told that once it had been "excessed" they didnt care where it went as long as some company wasnt picking it up directly. (a couple of nice server racks found their way into my studio more than once).  But anyway, last year, all of that changed. All of a sudden we were allowed to allow the AHRC (local developmentally challeged org) to pick up the equipment and do whatever they wanted with it.  But what changed?  Apparently, some tree hugger made a comment about the mercury content of the moniors and computer devices we were putting into land fills and voila! We now had a choice, either pay someone to pickup and recycle the tonnage, or ley someone else come and remove it for us, at which point the govt is "SAVING MONEY" by donating it. (crock o sh*t IMO but ive scored a couple of laptops and some UPS', the equipment is now going to a worthy cause and all seems right, for now, until the next guy gets into office whose buddies with some recycling company, then that company will be getting a govt contract to cart it.

About selling it.... You wouldnt believe the red tape if i could even fully describe it when it comes to purchasing an item... The same is true when getting rid of things that dont have titles. (cars, busses, buildings).  To sell it, youd have to have a public auction and sell each item individually.  Not allowed to do lots. So that means every cd drive, every case, every stick of ram.... Auction would never end. For cars and stuff its a lot easier since there a relatively low qty of items to deal with.

PS all hard drives have to be destroyed by drilling or cutting the platters after theyve been low lev formatted. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

A new test of the "rules" involves the president stacking the NRLB with recess appointments, when congress was not actually in recess. While the executive decides "who" to appoint, congress has the right to approve or reject (inform and consent). A lower court has challenged the "not really recess" appointments, making over a year of rulings by that panel subject to being voided if/when the supreme court reviews the lower court decision. 
JR

While I may be one of the few people paying attention to this (I think the constitution matters).

To update, in a new development the Obama administration has now submitted these two "not really" recess appointments to the NRLB for formal confirmation by congress. This seems a tacit admission, or concession that the original appointments were not legal.

Still hard to tell how this may end up... even if confirmed now a year after the fact, the last year's worth of rulings may still get thrown out.  Of course unknown whether A) they will actually get confirmed by congress (who should be angry about the attempt to circumvent their authority) and B) how SCOTUS will rule on the lower court ruling if Holder fights it up to that level. 

It is the nature of presidents to try to expand the power of the office, and the job of the other branches to defend their power. What gets missed in this tug of war is that the ultimate power resides in the people. We are a nation of laws.

JR

PS: I still like my idea that all public statements by candidates (and elected officials) be held to the higher standards of veracity like testimony in court or before congress under oath. The speeches always sound good, but they rarely resemble what actually happens. Tolo many individual items to list... read my mind... 

 

[Gold]

The upside is that a business like Apex Jr. probably wouldn't exist without accounting rules like that. I certainly reap those rewards.

 

[buildafriend]

I can relate to this rant.

My school has a room filled with old signal generators and scopes and test boards.. they never use them. The problem is, the professor who teaches the electronics courses does not see how it's worth it for us to try these things. Instead he shows us multisim, and teaches us theory that is much more abstract to most of the students than me because they don't understand what the theory is even for. Luckily I understand wave forms to a certain extent and I can grasp what he's talking about. The education system works in mysterious ways.. I can agree with his logic to a certain extent but im pretty most engineers end up behind a scope at one point or another. how else could you supervise a team of technicians?