This morning I've been emailed a new form I have to fill in to be paid for demonstration. It's rather ill thought out - well I think so anyway! There's always a chance that it's the people who've told the university to answer the questions who are ill in the ways of thinking...
Firstly...
SIGNING ON FORM FOR CASUALS, DEMONSTRATORS AND VISITING LECTURERS, PROFS AND CONSULTANTS
(Yeah, it was SHOUTING on the original and I'm too lazy to make it proper cased...)TITLE (Mr/Mrs)
OK, so I'm being anally retentive here, but do laides who do casual work for the uni have to be married? More to the point... it's for "VISITING LECTURERS, PROFS AND CONSULTANTS" surly some of these will be Dr. or Prof.? Nit picking I know...
It's the ethniciny thing that really got me, maybe it's political correctness gone a bit weird and broken... who knows...
ETHNIC ORIGIN - Choose one section from (a) to (f) then tick the appropriate box to indicate your background.
- White British
- English
- Scottish
- Welsh
- Other, please specify
- Mixed
- White and Black Caribbean
- White and Black African
- White and Asian
- Any other Mixed background. Please specify
- Asian or Asian British (Asian English, Asian Scottish or Asian Welsh)
- Indian
- Pakistani
- Bangladeshi
- Any other Asian background. Please specify
- Black or Black British (Black English, Black Scottish or Black Welsh)
- Caribbean
- African
- Any other Black background. Please specify
- Chinese or Chinese British (Chinese English, Chinese Scottish or Chinese Welsh)
- Chinese
- Any other Chinese background. Please specify
- Other background
It's the biggest pile of wank of ethnicities I've ever seen! OK, so the get out clause is the fact that there's so many "Other background please specify" options...
All white people are British - it says that on the heading... what about other Europeans who are completely forgotton about other than 'other' box, what about the Irish, Australians, Americans... blah blah. And they've split up a tiny island (Britain) into 3 parts and yet the whole of Africa is given one tick box. Why does China get it's own whole section? isn't it in Asia anymore? and what kinds of "Other Chinese backgrounds" are there? I guess if you're Latin-American you're just an "Other background" at the bottom. I can't help feeling that if I was demoted to 'other' at any stage I'd be a tad miffed - I don't know how many Latin American's there are in the world, but I think it's rather deserving of it's own box.
So yeah, what a big pile of wank!