Ah the last day off before Fall 2003 term begins at the University of Waterloo. Thousands of UW students, wondering what classes to show up for tomorrow morning are logging on to Quest, our web based student information system, to print off their schedule. Oh oops, you didn't think that the system would actually be AVAILABLE when you the student need it? No, only the helpful Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01f4' awaits eager schedule seekers this Sunday night.

Last term when this happened (it happens every term), I proposed firing the University employees responsible for chronic failures of mission critical systems, mimicing what would happen in a for-profit company where people are held accountable. This term, I have a new proposal, also inspired by industry, but perhaps more feasible. Robert Scoble recently noted that Microsoft's executives are compensated proportionally to improvements in customer satisfaction. As the University of Waterloo's customer, I would like to fill out a survey every term to indicate my satisfaction with the university's administration, much like I already rate my professors on their teaching effectiveness at the end of every term. If students are generally satisfied with the service they receive from the various tentacles of the UW bureaucracy: Co-operative Education & Career Services, their faculty's undergrad office, Information Systems & Technology, etc. then we will happily pay our $100k plus administrators' salaries. If not, and I guarantee that this is the state we are currently in, those salaries will be proportionately reduced.