Class Warfare in Law School

My law school has decided to hire a new supervisor of about 5 secretaries. Anyone can interview the candidates so I tagged along.  I do most of my own work and rarely use a secretary but have never had any complaints. Nor have most of my colleagues. It's a pretty good relationship.

BUT, as one secretary said in the interview "our biggest problem is the faculty." The story is like this. A couple of faculty make obviously out of bounds requests -- skirting copyright laws, tons of personal work and lots of work that would not be necessary if their own jobs were treated as full time -- If a secretary balks at all, off the faculty member is to the administration which promptly orders the secretary to "do it."

So you've got privileged over affirmed elitists who mostly have not done a hour of real work in their lives or come close to walking in the shoes of a secretary dealing with secretaries who generally have not been to college.  Oh, and they are tenured and quick to sue  if they feel wronged. Plus, no dean I have known has the balls to say "you are wrong and the secretary is right." My goodness, he or she is "just" a secretary right?  Instead there is appeasement and ultimately the "do it" order.

As I said before, respect should be afforded people in inverse relationship to their status and wealth. You will rarely go wrong unless you have an Aztec. Then you will never go wrong.