IN RESIGNING FROM his position as Finance and Administrator Officer, not only has Dominic Tarn deprived The Cheese Grater of the barrel in which to shoot fish, but he’s left UCL Union in the lurch, again.
Shove off
What is it about the F&A Sabbatical position which attracts incompetent fuckwits? This is, after all, the same position that was abandoned last year by Mark “Fascist” Littler. It seems that neither man was quite, er, man enough for the job, both having resigned within a few months of becoming Sabbs. According to one of last year’s Sabb officers, Zoë Davies, Littler jumped before he was pushed (preferably bound and gagged). With a cackle, Davies told the current Sabb officers that as far as Littler was concerned, “we got rid of him.”
Dull crayon
However, even Dominic wasn’t as unpopular as that. So what were his reasons for ducking out of his job? In a badly-worded and grammatically incorrect letter to the General Manager, Tarn announced that he was “not keen on rules and regulations”, and that he “disliked committees”.
Not the brightest of crayons, Tarn also told The Cheese Grater “My job isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.” Presumably he had expected more glitzy soirees, or perhaps just another opportunity to use his position to flash UCLU’s cash [see CG12 for the Film and TV Society debacle - Ed]. Tarn also whined, “I just want to get things done, but I have to keep going to all these committees.” What a pity that democracy still exists, eh Dom?
The world is yours...
Lest we forget, this is the same Dominic Tarn whose successful campaign posters were based on the film Scarface. Tarn was portrayed as the film’s antihero Tony Montana. He’d obviously read the script thoroughly, as the equally charming ragamuffin Montana says: “You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers and say “That’s the bad guy.”
So perhaps UCL Union is better off without the Tarninator. There were grumblings amongst the UCLU Executive when Dominic decided he wanted to take a two week holiday near the start of term. His girlfriend’s sister was coming to London for the first time, and would need someone to show her round the big, bad city. Tarn bravely volun AS teered, conveniently forgetting the thousands of Freshers – also coming to London for the first time – who might appreciate a Sabbatical officer looking out for them. Not to mention the autumn term Union elections which are organised and presided over by… the F&A Officer!
Brown nosing
There’s one person in particular who will doubtless be weeping into his latte. Tarn was a great fan of the Chief Executive – sorry, General Manager (see the Governance Review article, this issue) – of UCLU. During a private email exchange with Samantha Godwin, General Secretary of the Union, Tarn decided to make the whole thing public and copied in the entire Executive and several members of staff. Stopping short of throwing the General Manager a seig heil, Tarn espoused sickening levels of brown nosing for the staff member, announcing that from what he had seen so far, “had nothing but confidence in [the GM’s] ability”. All this after only six days in office.
UCL Union may be up the creek without a paddle but at least Tarn is likely to get his Hollywood ending. A source tells us he is planning on emigrating to Canada with his girlfriend. It’s just a pity that this story ends with the hero riding into the sunset, rather than having his body riddled with bullets, before being thrown to the sharks. Or as Montana would say, “Say good night to the bad guy! This is the last time you’re going see a bad guy like this again.”