Benefits from alumni? Think again

Some faculty members or school administrators seem to think that it is enough to produce plenty of graduates to generate income and other benefits from alumni. This logic is flawed - you surely need alumni but they have to be happy to be from your school.
I can serve as an useful example. I'm pretty good student, I will most likely finish among the first in my cohort. My research, while not the best in the world, is well above average. I was even stupid enough to get funding for my mobility - something everyone is supposed to try to do yet nobody does. Even though I have encountered plenty of stupidity among the huge crowds of employees of CERGE-EI prior to my departure, it cannot be even compared what happened when I came back.
The school did not manage to get my entry card working, even after 6 weeks since I came back. I had a prior written agreement over my status for the next year. After I fulfilled my obligations, some people changed our agreement to something that had already cost me about $1500. When I came to a meeting with infamous Mr. Nemec to "negotiate", he told me "This is how it will be". I being discriminated by not getting a stipend when everybody else does - for reasons manufactured by "them". I will not continue, even though I could. It is a long list.
The point of this story is that when your graduates leave you angry and pissed off, they won't be very helpful for the school. I have graduated from Masaryk University and I have much, much better memories for that time. I will be glad to help them (In fact, I already am) whenever they ask. I will not for CERGE-EI. I hope this post does not prevent me from getting my degree, but as you can clearly see I am angry.

Working Papers at CERGE-EI

There is a plenty of rules for submission and evaluation of Working Papers at CERGE-EI. Most of them attempt to smooth the process and limit its length. It is all governed by one person I will not name, because this person changes and for another reason that will be obvious in a minute.
This person receives the paper, selects the referee from CERGE-EI faculty, usually based on suggestions provided by the author, sends them the paper, collects the reviews etc. The referees are supposed to be done in 3 weeks. There are no limits on how fast they need to be chosen. So check this:

This is a submission email:

Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:33:33 -0700

And this is an email send by that person to the referees:

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:51:54 +0200

Yes, it took him 2 weeks to send a 3 line email. Given our history, I guess it is personal...

Universities and bureaucrats

Some of the reasons why I'm considering business career instead of academic one is the bureaucracy I found so far in every university (UCSD has a b., but it seems to work better than usual). Most of the bureaucracy is self-inflected (ie., created by the institution itself), but not all. The sheer stupidity of most administrative workers, though, is clearly not necessary and drives me crazy. I will give you an example based on a real story - my first grant.
My boss told me to apply for a GAUK grant (Charles University grant agency, grants for its students). I did not need the money - I'm doing theory, I need a pan and paper (or steamy bathroom with mirrors). Yet, it is good to have a grant on your CV, especially if you apply for a grant, and one needs to start somewhere.
I really did not need the money, so I wrote it carelessly. My colleagues needed the money, so they wrote it carefully. I won. I got the money for calendar year 2007, and they were available in June 2007. Quite late for summers school of summer conference, especially because I was leaving to San Diego in September and had to be present in Prague in August for visa and (an)other paperwork.
Nevertheless, I was able to use the money. The thing is that there are always strings attached to the grants, so you can't really use the money the way you want (or you consider moral). But you certainly have to use it all, no matter what.
The "fun" part comes now. I have to write final report (which I knew) and so I did. The deadline set by university is April 1, by faculty March 25th and I was informed about the latter. However, the CERGE-EI decided that it's students are stupid and thus they need to submit the final report a week earlier to CERGE-EI (it's not a faculty). It did not really tell anybody - they posted information about new round of grants (for 2008) in October 2007 (five months ago!), to which they attached a Word document, at the end of which they posted one line saying that the deadline for final reports of the previous round is March 17.
In contrast to the faculty (FSV), they did not bothered to send an email about that. Instead, they waited till the deadline was over and then they sent a threating email to us who missed the deadline (AFAIK, all of us).
Moreover, they required that we submit three copies in print and a CD/floppy disk in person. This is not only impossible (I'm in San Diego, and I really don't have $2,5000 to spare to get right now to Prague), but utterly ridiculous. The report for faculty and university is to be submitted via very simple web form, it is about 2 pages of text. If you send it by email, they can print it by pressing "Print", they don't really need you to bring it.
So I'm supposed to fulfill deadline I wasn't told about, that has no standing in the grant contract, that is utterly stupid and I'm being threatened that if I don't do it, something bad happens.
I don't want to be bothered in my life with things like this. I will have to deal with government, which is equally stupid and similarly inefficient, I don't need to meet another group of useless people (ineffective administrative workers) and their stupid rules.
P.S. Why am I so sensitive about a missed deadline? I don't know. I probably think that the world would be a better place if all people did the things they are supposed to do in time. I certainly try hard to do that. But it requires that I'm told about the deadline.

Leaving CERGE-EI

Leaving CERGE-EI is a very funny and very "pleasant" process. First, you have to pay for your office-mates phone calls, even for time when you haven't been in that office. Second, you have to return the books, including those you bought from you own grant.
Finally, you have to acquire full page of signatures for other things. The beginning of that paper says "Dear Student, as you have decided to quit our program". Well, I'm not quitting the program, I'm going for a mobility and I managed to get my own funds to do so (as I was encouraged to do). This is my punishment for a good deed.
P.S. As it turned out, if you are patient and persuasive, you can keep your books and you don't have to pay for others phone calls.