Edna Chun’s Sad Tale or As the World Turns at UNCG

All right, I finally did it. I broke down and bought an ergonomic keyboard. I simply can’t keep up with the pace of the UNCG soap opera if they are going to keep churning out news at this rate. I really am going to have to ask for health insurance and a pension if they keep me working full time like this.

The News and Record reported yesterday that Chun has filed a grievance with UNCG.

The irony was not lost on me. I think it would have been considered heavy handed as a story line even in the world of daytime television, but this is reality where no such bars on the purest melodrama exist.

Chun’s angle is that she was fired because of her age (68) and her ethnicity (Asian). She certainly wasn’t fired because of her abilities (insignificant) or her strength of character (absent).

One of her primary complaints isn’t that she was innocent of royally screwing up but that she wasn’t extended the courtesy of being allowed to resign or retire rather than be fired.

Wait, I’m tearing up and I can’t see the screen clearly.

Okay.

In other words, she is the first one that has been dealt with appropriately. That has got to hurt.

Somebody more fluent than I in the subtleties of this system might need to fill us in, but I would imagine that if you retire or resign you get a different set of benefits than if you are fired. At the very least you get to save face.

Something that doesn’t happen, of course, if you are carted away in handcuffs and your mug shot is posted for all the world to see.

But I digress.

So, she wasn’t given the velvet handshake. Also, she says, she doesn’t know why she was fired. And she didn’t have anything to do with the UNCG3 anyway. And Paul Mason made her do it.

I’m having a hard time processing all of those different angles at the same time. She didn’t do it, except for that they made her do it, and she doesn’t know why they fired her, but she didn’t do it anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I think that’s the argument.

Pulling together all of his talents as a university spokesman and after a lengthy incantation to invoke the muses, Joe Gallehugh responded bravely on behalf of UNCG with words that are sure to echo through the ages much as the speeches recorded by Tacitus in his Histories that the university couldn’t comment.

Chun is showing some backbone in refusing to allow others off the hook and go silently. Of course, it would have been helpful earlier if she had brought it to the public’s attention that Paul Mason had demanded to know the names of those who had filed grievances against him and pressured her to dismiss the matter. Also, apparently her supervisor, Charles Maimone created a hostile work environment – something Chun suddenly seems to clearly understand.

But if she wants to call out the whole rat’s nest, I would advise everyone to put on goggles and gloves because it’s going to get dirty.

Maybe Lyda Carpen can offer Chun some pointers about going through the grievance process. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Carpen is too busy these days to have time to help.

Joe Gallehugh Doesn't Want To Communicate

Don’t even ask.

No, it doesn’t matter what. The point is you shouldn’t ask.

Joe Gallehugh has nothing to say on behalf of UNCG. This shouldn’t be too surprising since he doesn’t work here. He is, somehow, however in charge of communications. Didn’t we once have a bunch of people doing that? I feel like I remember a whole department worth of people who were dedicated to it…I don’t know, must have been a dream.

Joe has decided that to build on the atmosphere of trust and transparency he will pre-emptively tell journalists that whatever the question they had and to whomever it was directed there is simply nobody anywhere who has anything to say in response to it.

Margaret Moffet received just such an unsolicited refusal to comment after leaving messages with several UNCG administrators. Rather than discover pesky details such as what the questions were that she wanted to ask, Gallehugh demonstrated his leaderesque excellence quality by bestowing on the literary world the following bit of Shakespearean prose:

"No one from UNCG has a comment for your story scheduled for this weekend’s News & Record.”

Look at that quality!

It has quite a ring to it, doesn’t it? As if the bard himself were now in charge of screwing our courage to the sticking place.

Or, at least, something is being screwed.

A quick call to his “office” was answered by the following message:

“Due to privacy, I cannot disclose the number which you have dialed. However, in the unfortunate likelihood that you are calling to ask a question, please press three and your call will be immediately directed to the back of my hand because UNCG has nothing to say to you.”

Portrait of Joe Gallehugh

I wonder if there will be answers to questions posed for weekday editions of the News & Record? Maybe this is really just a statement on the oppressive presence of work even during days that should be given wholly to rest and renewal. Maybe he meant that the answers were so complex he wished to schedule an in depth conversation in order to fully explain the nuances and ensure complete understanding. Maybe he meant that there are people who don’t work for UNCG who could better answer any questions. Maybe he meant that next weekend would work better.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Instead, I think what he meant was: 

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say! … What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”