This satirical article on The Daily Mash made me smile today, and seemed to be begging to have a few words changed around in order to make it even more appropriate for academia. Enjoy:
Universities have revealed new measures to help you spend all your time doing work and publishing papers.
As well as radically extending university opening hours, universities will demolish your house and put your children in “permanent daycare” as part of plans to ensure all academics live on campus by 2020.
Professor Frank Mutz, a spokesperson for a group of elite universities, said: “As we all know, the purpose of life is to publish as many papers as humanly possible before you die.”
“The university day will now start at 5am and finish at 4.59am so that the tiny fraction of academics that are actually parents can work without the hassle of arranging childcare or seeing their children.
“Academics with kids will receive a monthly postcard with a picture of the child and some generic text about how much fun they’re having, like you get if you adopt an otter at the zoo. Children will be housed in university buildings that no longer see any use, such as the ones that were used for the humanities before every Tom, Dick and Harry decided he wanted to do Business Management.”
“Another area of concern is public holidays. Christmas is a particular waste of valuable working time, so we’re replacing Christmas Day with Christmas Hour. Similarly, New Year’s Eve will become Two Quick Drinks Then An Early Night Eve.”
“It’s all about work life balance. Your life is a ‘work life’ – how do you balance all the work?”
Words in mOcean 