Faced with budget cuts and a rapidly changing landscape in higher education, I have made the painful decision to lay off, to outsource and to redeploy, my entire imaginary staff. As the leader of myself, I have to show a good example. A college professor, I am aligning key resources with a refurbished messaging strategy. Understanding that my most valuable resources–my three-pound brain–needs to be positioned to take maximal advantage of emerging opportunities in the sector, I aim to make those tough decisions to guarantee that my inflection point does not drain anticipated resources in the final quarter of the reporting period. Relying on the guidance and management principles that served many well, I can point to the scholar who wrote, “I just stopped in to see what condition my condition was in” as my dashboard measure here.

In an effort to enhance transparency, I am announcing the following realignment of my pretend staff and faux advisors. There has been plenty of carping and snarky comments about my assistants and advisors so let it be known today that these staff members are being realigned, maybe more consistent with their horoscopes.

Complaints and criticisms about grading, my mood, my haircut, my expectations, and administrative responses to my response to unreasonable demands will no longer be fielded by my Special Assistant for Grievances. Instead, these will be outsourced to our regional office in a far away land taking advantage of the fact that well educated people will work for pennies if they have to.

Appointments, conferences, meetings, Skyping, Instant Messaging, Instragramming, Tweeting and all the rest will be managed by the Roomba robot, which will be assigned in a dual appointment to vacuum my office floor as well. This eliminates my Special Assistant for Filling Time.

The Special Projects Office will also be eliminated. This, as you may remember, was the unit assigned to keep our division on a clear path to strategic distinctiveness. These duties—formulating mission statements, zeroing in on strategic directions, creating actionable acts, fashioning wordy words— are being reassigned to the Ministry of Future where promises are made and deadlines forgotten.

The impact of so much administrative change in a non-existent staff will be harder for some to adjust than others. Jettisoning levels of mid-level managers means that underlings can make many bad decisions on their own without the interference from above. This will allow me, Professor Decider, to manage my own time and resources in a more efficient effective way.

My door is always open to you, of course, but I most likely will not be in my office. No need.