My dept head sat me down in his office the other day and broke me the great news that the powers that be have decided to offer me the glory of having my ass placed in a newly created administrative post.

He went through all the motions to convince me this is great. Well, it is, in that he will support my application for promotion and substantiation and there will be a lighter teaching load. It's good, he said, to do something new, to take on new responsibilities, and to be acknowledged by 'everyone' as the best candidate for this job. I should be pleased and should accept it, basically.

Now of course things never quite actually resemble the manner in which they are presented to you, especially when you are being cornered in your boss's office.

Of course, everything he said is true (if you qualify 'everyone' being three people in our dept), as he has already said he would support my application for promotion two months ago. I will be in a position of shitloads of extra work and in return I will get a token cash subsidy, a bit less teaching, and animosity from everyone in my dept apart from the three whom he considers as 'everyone' .

I can't say no, but I am afraid to say yes, as I haven't quite figured out the full extent of the conspiracy, yet.