I just stumbled upon this article and am a bit stunned by it. Charles Thomas Bolton is best known for discovering Cignus X-1 and ultimately irrefutable proof that black holes exist.
And the University is booting him out claiming that the observatory he works in is of no use anymore due to light pollution. Really? Because someone like Mr. Bolton wouldn’t be continuing to work for you if that were the case, right? Yeah, it sounds like a load of crap to me too. To add insult to injury, the University gave him 10 days to get out. That’s right, 10 days. That’s it. They didn’t even sit down and say “hey, we’ll give you a lovely reference to a different observatory” or “we found you another job if you’d like it” or something like that, considering the guy has been working for them for decades. Is this how you treat someone who has done great things and who is obviously a competent worker?
Needless to say, the whole thing smells fishy to me, because you don’t just decide overnight to get rid of an observatory and boot someone out with a ten day notice who has been working hard for a long time. Not sure what is going on behind the scenes, but whatever it is, it’s b.s.
(Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
4 Responses
Wow & sad! Especially the University just sending an “email” stating he had to be out. They knew they were not handling it properly – otherwise they would have had a face to face with him which brings about your points of other options.
Umm, maybe he did something really bad, and they’re actually being nice by just letting him go fairly quietly?
I really doubt it, Ellira. They’re selling the observatory…somehow I can’t imagine you can do something so bad that they’d sell the observatory just to let you go…
Oh well you missed that out. :p And if they’re selling it fast there’s not much to do but get rid of everyone … Which is sad, but it happens.