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    WhiskeyBlackoutHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:44am

    When I worked at my state's department of public safety, our boss spent around 200K to buy all these new desks to convert the cubes into an open air work environment so we could all, I dunno, brainstorm in shit.

    Turns out the cubes were all that kept the drones from beating each other to death with socks full of old computer mice. The plan was such a disaster she resigned, another victim of over zealous desk implementation. The struggle is real.

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      RobNYCWhiskeyBlackout
      12/03/14 9:52am

      Back when I was working for one of the giant accounting firms, they spent a ton of money on an office renovation for an open plan and no offices. They even hired a contractor to manage all the desk assignments since people wouldn't have a permanent desk, just a box with their stuff and it would be at whatever desk they were assigned since a lot of people traveled. Of course the old guard partners didn't really like it so they had to spend more money to put back offices with doors.

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      Queen of BithyniaWhiskeyBlackout
      12/03/14 10:01am

      What kind of jackass sits around thinking, "You know, these cubicle walls aren't humiliating enough. They allow people to pin photos of their families up. How about we take that away and make sure thirty other employees can see what's on their screen at all times?"

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    stacyinbeanHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:42am

    Waste like this kills me. They will never connect even close to 25 locations and if they even needed to that's why you use a conference coordinator. We have 6 conference rooms in our office of 80 people, each one equipped with a TV 55" or larger, one room even has two TVs. Each room is also equipped with video conference equipment. Including all the rooms it all maybe gets used 5 times a year and that's an absolute maximum. It's such a joke.

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      phunkshunstacyinbean
      12/03/14 9:50am

      We just outfitted one of our extension centers with a vid conferencing system in the lecture hall. It's nice but it cost nowhere near what this setup did.

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      Stenchofaburnerstacyinbean
      12/03/14 9:50am

      I'm old enough (40s) to have seen so many cycles of "state of the art! latest! technology!" in office equipment that I simple snigger Muttley style when fools attempt to justify spending a fortune in this type of equipment. In five years it already looks outdated and in ten people are making jokes about moving the stuff to a museum. Also, an ipad has "connecting 25 locations" capabilities and it costs a fraction of this investment while achieving practically the same results.

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    cuntybawsHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:42am

    The conference table matches the characteristic style used in China with a revolving component that permits buffet style presentation in the typical Chinese 'family style,' while permitting work to be done on a second tier of the table."

    Whoever thought that saying this would help has managed to make the table the second most ridiculous thing at Kean. Well diverted, sir/madam!

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      Hamilton Nolancuntybaws
      12/03/14 9:47am

      This is one of my favorite stories of the year. I can only pray they continue to defend this table in ever more comedic ways.

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      pswiftcuntybaws
      12/03/14 9:48am

      I can't figure out if the food innuendo's are intentional or not. Either way, I've got a serious craving for some dim-sum.

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    GregIsNotAnAlienHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:42am

    Good thing technology never becomes obsolete! Also, I'm sure "Executive Event Space" gets a LOT of use by a huge, diverse population!

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      rmric0.wedding.photographerGregIsNotAnAlien
      12/03/14 10:01am

      Yeah, no one ever regrets built-in electronics within five years.

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      IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerGregIsNotAnAlien
      12/03/14 10:47am

      It has the ring of a seedy, rundown, "was big back in the 80s, now much less so" hotel out by the airport, doesn't it? The "Executive Event Space" is only a few doors down from the ice machine, which makes much tastier ice, now that the dead body has been fished out of the water supply!

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    HaighaHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 10:05am

    As a NJ taxpayer, this is bullshit. The method used to bypass the bidding process was a joke. Given what K-12 schools have to go through (and the public higher ed institutions are supposed to do) to buy stuff in this state - which ends up costing extra money or limiting choices because it has to be an "approved" vendor, the fact that one of the public universities is skirting the law for a vanity project with no academic benefit is just infuriating. Public higher ed in NJ is really turning into a cesspool of patronage and pork. There wasn't nearly the amount of cash involved a couple of decades ago.

    Kean U was actually put on accreditation probation by Middle States a few years ago, eventually getting it renewed after a lengthy process. Glad to see they reverted to form after only a couple of years.

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      kimbersaysHaigha
      12/03/14 10:13am

      What caused the probation? (Yes, I could look it up but you live there and probably have some lore to share.)

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      he7788Haigha
      12/03/14 2:59pm

      Actually this is one of the biggest reasons that college costs are so high. This is the arms race to have the best campus ever so that you attract more students and become more elite. Except it doesn't work.

      Great articles on schools that take on hundreds of million in bonds to replace perfectly good building with newer fancier buildings. And that's just for one building.

      You will find that at many universities, that majority of tuition payments are going directly to paying off the debt (bonds) that were issued to make the campus fancier. There are quite a few small private schools on the brink of going under because of this.

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    Indiana van der RoheHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:43am

    Somewhere in NJ, a contractor is laughing his ass off.

    Actually, every contractor in NJ is laughing his ass off.

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      GetTheButtahIndiana van der Rohe
      12/03/14 10:26am

      Or crying. They could have bid half that price and still made a mint. :-)

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    Ned FreyHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:47am

    It's funny that they keep citing the videoconferencing capabilities. 20 years ago, that might have been impressive, and worth a lot of money (although not as much as $200,000). But today, anyone can videoconference very cheaply over the Internet using Web-based tools. Connecting 20 people around the world via video is no longer a big deal. I do it for work meetings every week, and we just use our phones, a tool called WebEx and the Internet.

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      kimbersaysNed Frey
      12/03/14 10:12am

      Well, and how many world-wide conference does Kean University actually have? It's like something from Austin Powers in it's silliness.

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      The Other TheronNed Frey
      12/03/14 11:21am

      You are talking about administrators. I e-mail things to my Dean, but when I actually need something done, I go talk to her in person, because I know that 90% of the time her e-mail "isn't working," no doubt because she has neither deleted nor archived an e-mail since 1999 and the mailbox storage is full.

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    CatdogWhispererHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:43am

    I give it two weeks before some kid carves a swastika into it.

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      OMG!PONIES!CatdogWhisperer
      12/03/14 10:12am

      I hope to Cod that someone carves a Metallica logo into it.

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    RobNYCHamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 9:48am

    Reminds me of this:

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      benjaminalloverRobNYC
      12/03/14 9:58am

      Steve Coogan plays such a wonderful asshole.

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      pureblarneyRobNYC
      12/03/14 1:20pm

      There's another movie where Steve Coogan plays a hilarious dick? Omg.

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    OMG!PONIES!Hamilton Nolan
    12/03/14 10:06am

    Does AT&T no longer have a dial-in conference call service? Did Skype and Google Hangouts get shut down? Is Avaya now out of business?

    I'm fairly certain that you can connect 25 locations with a variety of options and not spend $219,000 in the process.

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      dontcallmemimiOMG!PONIES!
      12/03/14 11:05am

      For real. We have connected 100+ people in labs across the country using Adobe Connect with zero issues and I can join from my desk while eating Taco Bell.

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