This morning a colleague asked for advice on a grant proposal, which I was of course happy to give. His question: if you loan everyone a mobile device, how do make sure you get ‘em back in decent working order. I explained that we’d assigned a number to each iPod, and the students and I had countersigned receipts when I distributed them. (For those keeping score at home, this worked reasonably well.)
What I didn’t tell my colleague, because I didn’t do it, is that a friend had encouraged taking an additional step: Telling the students that the university had installed a keystroke logger on each iPod, to track whether they were using the device for pedagogical purposes. That seemed like a terrible idea, both because the practice would be evil, and because telling students that it was true would imply that I went along with it.
I’ve talked before about the most Machiavellian advice I’ve received: To cover being late with papers, tell students you’ve found some plagiarists. Not only will students stop asking about the papers, but a couple of people will usually out themselves as plagiarists. I’ve never done this, but I will tell students the story as a cover for being late.
What struck me about those examples is that the people giving the advice were completely serious. The ideas on offer struck them as entirely good and reasonable. (Evil ideas that are self-evidently outrageous are a different issue: Everyone’s heard jokes about secretly rescheduling committee meetings to exclude unusually cranky members, and so forth.) And they’re not just impractical, or at odds with reality in some way–they’re ideas that are morally wrong. (For an example of an idea that might’ve been a mistake, but isn’t really evil in this sense, see the backstory to the John Roberts rumor.)
This struck me as an interesting topic for discussion: What is the most evil, but seriously intended, advice you’ve ever gotten?
[Image by Flickr user Gagilas / Creative Commons licensed]
Comments
1. Denise - March 05, 2010 at 02:30 pm
I once got some rather brutal and somewhat "evil" advice from a senior faculty member when I was a very junior one. They said "don't buy a house, don't have a baby, don't even think about a serious relationship until you get tenure..." That wasn't the type of place I wanted to stay at given the disregard for private life. At another point a similar senior faculty person cautioned me about turning down jobs that involved relocating away from my significant other. Their advice was find someone new at the city with the right job. Again advice I choose to ignore with my eyes wide open to the consequences.
2. Matthew Leingang - March 05, 2010 at 02:39 pm
Somebody told me to tell students that multiple versions an exam were being circulated, even if you're only using a single version. If a student points out that all the versions where the same, you can say, "How do you know?"
3. JoVE - March 05, 2010 at 03:42 pm
My partner's phd supervisor advised him that upon taking up a faculty position he should do all administrative tasks late and with at least one mistake. I have a sneaking feeling this is rather common advice.
4. Billie - March 07, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Similar to Jove's partner's advice, I once worked for someone who reminded me repeatedly (directly and indirectly) to not outshine anyone (especially those in a "higher" position than me), to keep my head down and "off the radar," and to do the the barest minimum amount of work possible if I wanted to keep my job. Maybe this isn't "evil" in the sense that you meant it, Jason, but it's evil nonetheless to encourage this kind of work ethic in other people.
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