Alternate University

[Another New Year's party, another festivity Frollo's forced to attend. Despite his best efforts, the other faculty liked to include him in their reindeer games. Whether this came from goodwill or morbid curiosity about what the grouch would produce was hard to determine. The latest participant, one Ms. Merriweather, was aglow with end-of-the-year cheer.]

"Mr. Frollo! Fancy seeing you here! Have you heard about the season finale of Mad Men? It sounds like just your kind of thing; very moral, you know. Very critical."

"I'm not familiar..."

[That was not an invitation; nonetheless, she gushed and brought him up to speed.]

"So you see, it's a fascinating period piece about, you know, what things were like back then. What do you say?"

"I say it's not nearly so moral as myopic; merely a devilish distraction."

[Though truly he wished he'd, if not she'd, said nothing at all. Judging by her bewildered look, he figured he'd have to elucidate. Like one of his lectures. Well, if she insists.]

"From what you've said, it seems this televised drama belongs to the genre of 'Now We Know Better'. The characters will indulge, without irony, something shocking to modern sensibilities. The moderns will then indulge a chuckle or a cluck, per their wont, and congratulate themselves on having the good fortune of being born decades afterwards. Such morality is pandering and cheap. Why the sins of the past were, and whether they were truly wicked or merely unfashionable, is not thought of. Indeed, such entertainment is a loss to real virtue, deadening the present to its own vices in favor of jeering the dead's. I confess, I see precious little morality in that."

[Merriweather's shock increased. Goodwill lingering, she floundered for a way to continue the conversation.]

"Oh, well, I see. Um...what vices don't get much attention nowadays?"

[His eyes lightly gave her a once over, noting that she was slightly overweight.]

"Gluttony, perhaps."

[Her face reddened.]

"O-oh, well, my friend is over there, and we really need catching up. Ah, Happy New Years!"

"Likewise."

[Frollo was blessed with a severe baritone and a preacherly knack for sermonizing, so his lecture and the fallout drew more attention than just his poor interlocutor. Good; that'll teach them to share their inane recreations. And Frollo's nothing if not an excellent teacher.]

[The usual business management teacher had to take a day off, and so Frollo, one who rarely took sick days, filled in. Many teachers dreaded this exact occurrence, for Frollo was too well-versed in academia to avoid, and too fiery to not add his own personal touch to their otherwise vanilla lesson plan.

The students visibly stiffened when he entered the room, and his severity meant their wariness never let up. Frollo chalks this up to his fine teaching ability, and can't quite see what part fear might play. With a pained, perfunctory air, he went over the usual. Operations, finances, the seedy, psychological tricks that people use to part the innocent from their alms. Before long he'd covered the material, leaving him ample time to teach what he really wanted.]

"The Manager"; the grotesque, worldly thing you all no doubt aspire to, is something of a junior demon. It is, to my lament, a product universities such as this reliably spawn like bot flies poring from flesh. A testament, I fear, to the increasing monetization of what used to be such hallowed halls of learning. Yes, even a university can fall to the base nature of supply. Perhaps I might amend the "demand".

[The look he gave them was one full of grim, caustic chastisement. Clearly the impure, financial side of college was both their fault and their full intent. Sinners.]

The world, low and greedy, would readily employ ones such as yourself as vassals to extend its reach. It would embroil you in hateful work--the gradual enslavement of others--, and its only reward being the deferment of the same for yourself. In exchange for swindling your soul, it promises that you, having done its dirt, may avoid its chains by pursuing worldly pleasures beyond the reach of those you "manage". What better way to avoid the lash then holding the whip?

[He spoke as if he had personal experience with the instrument. He became yet graver.]

Bureaucracy is the yoke by which it punishes and rewards, and despite my efforts, colleges are no less exempt from its schemes. Management positions are among the highest for graduates, who go out into the world only to consume and, in the end, be consumed thereby. They work their own damnation, and unlike Faust, do so unknowingly. Even if one seeks to avoid its claws, management becomes increasingly rife with every rung higher up the corporate latter. A climb that ends, spiritually, with a noose.

It is my fain, if vain, hope, that you will hold fast to your souls, and not trade them for the world's rewards. You shall find that the devil pays a fair wage, in the end: exactly as one deserves.

[His flaming eyes bored into them so fiercely that they regarded it as salvation itself when he finally said]

Class dismissed.

[He wasn't long in following them out the door, pinching his forehead at the thought of dealing with these demoniacal underlings in the world outside. How on earth do people...manage?]