Confidential

I was recently asked to write a recommendation for one of my colleagues - it was kind of a formal procedure for our university.

Although I became an academic staff for over 10 years, this is the first time I write recommendation for this particular purpose. Our campus MBAs (which stands for Master of Bureaucratic Administration) are so productive that the rules keep changing and there is now a standardized recommendation form for me to fill it.

I read it through. Towards the end of the form, it says:

The information of this form is absolutely confidential. Please send the form directly to our office after it is completed. Under no circumstances should the referee release information on the form to the candidate. However, please also note that in order to comply with the Privacy Ordinance, the candidate has the right to request a full copy of this form from our office - with the details of the referee.

Extra-terrestrials do have a different system of logic.

PS. I recently learn that a second type of MBA is Management By Absence. That's another story.