I am the Poorass who spoke for the clerks.I’ll say it again: we are not jerks.We’re regular people trying to get through each day, And raise our children on the peanuts you pay.

Now another year is passing us by;The raises we hoped for are pie-in-the-sky.The money will be spent on popular trends,Instead of on clerks with no political friends.

And what’s going on with this year’s raises?Are you giving them out in staggered phases?You started off with three-and-a-half percent;Then raised it by four: wonder where that went.

You want faculty raises to attract the best.Then essentially say, “To hell with the rest.”You claim prof’s salaries have not sufficiently grown,But that’s just an excuse to inflate your own.

A good professor wants a place to teach,And eager students who are easy to reach.Research opportunities and freedom to speakWithout oppression is what teachers seek.

You claim that professors want better pay,But that’s just what you businessmen say.Profs aren’t concerned with who’s paid most,That’s Kirwan and Ray and Wexners’s boast.

You give yourselves raises to beat cost of living, But only to yourselves have you been giving.The difference in salaries keeps getting bigger,It makes me wonder, how do you figure?

Do you not know that we pay the same prices?Expenses, from our budgets, take bigger slices.Your hypocrisy is much more than sad.That, more than the money, is what makes me mad.

Is it asking so much to have our fair part:To buy clothes at Penney’s instead of K-Mart;To buy a house instead of renting a flatWhose carpeting stinks from the last tenant’s cat.

To go on vacation once in a while;And not have to worry about it costing a pile;To drive a car instead of taking the bus;Am I really making too much of a fuss?

We live with our parents long past the dayWhen we should be out and on our own way.We have part-time jobs to make ends meet, Our spouses work so our children can eat.

Has YOUR daughter cried ’cause she can’t understandWhy you’ll never be able to afford Disneyland?Is YOUR son skipping school because he’s stressedFrom being picked on by kids who are better dressed?

Where’s our incentive to do better work?We get lousy raises and hardly a perk.It’s hard to give our all when we knowThat our reward will always be low.

We’ve listened to your excuses ad nauseum;Then you spend money on a Jack Nicklaus museum.And there you’ll spend a mil and a half,But not for our salaries; do I hear a laugh?

A hundred thirty-two million to fix Larkins Hall,So that people can run and swim and play ball.While the staff has to put up with AVI, Because they’re the ones whose bid was least high.

Endowments now exceed one billion;The Campus Campaign got 500 million;Another golf course is not what we need;Again an example of what’s got me p’d.

The history of clerks is a proud one indeed;They called us scribes when we wrote with reed.We were the ones who could read and write.We kept the histories of those with the might.

Now we use keyboards and e-mail and screens,And we understand what it all means.But today we seem to be taken for granted;Seeds of contempt in your minds have been planted.

If you’d look, you’d see we’re not being greedy,Some of your staff are truly needy.It hurts to see millions flying around, While nothing for Civil Service can be found.

You don’t seem to be able to think past today;It’s your children and grandchildren who will payWhen a degree from OSU is considered a joke,Because we’ll be owned by Nike or Coke

D. Wm. Greenleaf