Vocational Education in Gotham

Gotham University's faculty and staff dining hall has a very long history and is one of the earliest buildings constructed on the university campus.

It still uses the traditional club restaurant's à la carte system. When Schiller entered, he turned around and shook the water droplets off his umbrella outside the door. Victor stepped aside and said, "It's a good thing you're here. Who would have thought that it would start raining halfway there?"

"That's how it is in Gotham. If you don't carry an umbrella with you, be prepared to get soaked."

He shook the black umbrella, then tucked it inside, tied it up, and placed it on the umbrella stand by the door. When Schiller entered, the heat in the room fogged up his glasses, so he simply took them off.

Victor glanced back at the umbrella and said, "Where did you buy this umbrella? It looks like good quality. I'll go buy one too."

"Do you know Green Street? It's the street in the East End, next to Living Hell. There's an umbrella maker in the alley at the end of the alley."

"Good heavens, you're so old-fashioned! What era are we living in? You're still looking for umbrella makers who make umbrellas by hand?"

"As you said yourself, this umbrella looks to be of good quality."

The two chatted as they found a round table by the window and sat down. After a while, a waiter came to take their order. Victor said, "I'm really not used to it. Gotham University's dining hall is so retro. When I was in California, the restaurants there all had windows."

"On the contrary, I don't like the window service; all that greasy bacon piled up, and the unevenly cut slices of bread..."

Schiller took the menu and said as he looked at it, "You guys seem to be busy again lately. Is there anything going on at the Faculty of Science?"

"Don't even mention it." Victor took the menu Schiller handed him, pointed it out to the waiter, and sighed, "I'm so busy, isn't it all because of you?"

"But I heard that the recent cold chain project is nearing completion, so you should be free by now."

Victor gave him a helpless look and said, "You didn't know? Those gang leaders are desperately short of manpower lately!"

"They especially lack people with management skills. Almost all the people in Gotham City who can do management are at Gotham University. When gangs come to borrow people, the president has no choice but to agree."

"But how many faculty and staff does Gotham University have? The number of positions the mob needs is probably far more than the number of people they can borrow."

"That's the problem." Victor tapped his finger on the table and said, "They can't borrow that many people, but without administrators, the whole system will be in chaos, so they had to go and talk to Headmaster Sheldon again..."

Just then, the food arrived, and Schiller, while cutting his steak, asked, "What are they trying to do?"

"Just as you predicted, they want to open a school."

Victor picked up the drink in front of him and took a sip. The cold liquid made him smack his lips. He said, "Gotham only has three high schools, and the enrollment rate is less than 10%. Most people who would study hard don't want to go to Gotham University, let alone stay in this city."

"They want to start their own school, a private school, and then teach them what they need."

"I remember Gotham should have some private schools?" Schiller thought for a moment and said, "Where? It should be in the south, right? There are two private boarding schools..."

"You said it yourself, it's in the south, in Affluent Area, a place where rich people take care of their kids. The things they teach there are pretty useless—musical instruments, painting, hockey. Do you expect gangsters to use that knowledge to manage their businesses?"

"So what they want to do is open a vocational high school?" Schiller said, flipping the scrambled eggs with his fork.

"It can't be called a middle school either." Victor swallowed the food in his mouth, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and continued, "It's more like a vocational school. Anyone can go, but the gangs will probably select a group of people to go in, mainly to train management."

"To be honest, they're being a bit unreasonable," Victor complained. "They asked me to fix their cryogenic warehouse, but after asking all the warehouse managers, not one of them can read the gauges, not even the most basic ones. How are they supposed to manage the warehouse?"

"So those gang leaders are planning to train their own people to address this issue?"

"That's right, and they can't find any teachers, so they have to borrow from Gotham University." Victor shrugged and said, "I just hope I'm not the one who gets borrowed, but I reckon I'll be on the list."

"You should be able to choose not to go, right?" Schiller put down his knife and fork, took a sip of water, and continued, "Sheldon can't exactly kidnap you."

"That's what they say, but in Gotham, if a dozen gangs jointly invite you, would you dare not go?"

"It seems you have a good understanding of the ecosystem here," Schiller said with a smile. "Welcome to Gotham, welcome to this grand stage."

"And the price they offered was quite good, several times my salary."

"Are you still short of money? Didn't you take on the commission from the Twelve Families to maintain and operate their cold chain industry? The compensation should be more than enough, right?"

"Nobody complains about having too much money." Victor said very bluntly, "The operations work doesn't take up much time, Gotham University's daily teaching... you know, it's practically non-existent. If they offer the right price, I might as well become a part-time teacher."

"Moreover, teaching them to read the reading charts will also make things easier for me. If they can maintain the warehouse themselves, I won't have to run back and forth anymore."

Schiller nodded. Victor had a point. He guessed that most of the teachers who agreed to teach part-time at vocational schools thought the same way.

The professors had all taken on jobs from the mob more or less. When they took the jobs, the pay offered by the mob was very tempting, but once they arrived on the scene, most of them were dumbfounded. The Gotham mob members were quite skilled with guns and weapons, but when it came to these kinds of technical problems, they were all clueless.

If you can't read a reading meter, that's the least of your worries. You won't know how to use a slightly more complex switch. If a technical term has more than five letters, you have to look it up in the dictionary. Even if you ask the whole team, there aren't many people who can explain the complete operating procedure.

Essentially, because Gotham's gangster industry is so mature, most people are destined from birth to make a living through simple and brutal methods, without considering learning any skills. When the industry begins to upgrade, many people in the city suddenly realize that the role of guns has diminished, while the role of knowledge has increased.

However, their thinking has become fixed, and they have missed the best learning stage. Most people don't understand these things, nor are they willing to learn those complex technical issues.

However, the rise of the logistics industry has led to drastic changes in personnel needs.

Originally, if the job was collecting protection money, the small boss didn't need to know anything more than the thugs below him. He might just be more senior and only needed to be able to count the money.

But that's no longer the case. The person in charge of a warehouse must be proficient in all aspects, at least in reading gauges and constantly monitoring temperature readings and product status. Meanwhile, the other staff members must also constantly monitor the inbound and outbound status of goods.

Originally, these specialized tasks could have been done by professionals, but given Gotham's reputation, no one in their right mind would risk their life here. Even with a lot of money, the mob couldn't hire many professional accountants, so they had to do it themselves.

Lacking professional knowledge and unwilling to learn, yet facing a shortage of management talent everywhere and unable to hire externally, the gang leader had only one option: to open training courses.

Since many of the professors at Gotham University had taken on side jobs for gangs, the gang leaders were able to easily contact them, offer them high prices, and hire them as teachers at private schools.

Just as Victor thought, many professors found that these gangsters were useless and only increased their workload while working. So they decided to teach them the basics first, so that they could have an easier time when taking on freelance work in the future.

Of course, originally, this had nothing to do with Schiller. He was Psychology Professor. Those gangsters might need physics teachers, chemistry teachers, math teachers, and even language arts teachers, but they didn't need a psychology teacher. The Gotham may not have much else, but they are very open-minded.

The problem lies in the celebrity effect.

Previously, Falcone his estate and invited Schiller to teach his family members.

Schiller mainly talked about basic knowledge such as industry models, but the Gotham gangsters have always followed Falcone's lead. Even the Old Godfather invited Schiller. If you run a school and don't invite him, isn't that obviously saying that the Old Godfather has no vision?

So, one afternoon in Gotham, Schiller received an invitation signed by more than a dozen major gangs.

The invitation letter didn't explicitly state its purpose, but simply invited Schiller to visit their newly established vocational school. However, Schiller estimated that once he arrived, he wouldn't be able to leave, and would at least be appointed as an honorary professor.

Schiller approves of the gangsters' active involvement in building schools. After all, if Gotham University wants to join the Ivy League, it is essential to improve the academic atmosphere of the entire Gotham City. In addition to building more high-end research institutes, it is also necessary to establish a complete talent training system.

The Wayne Enterprises has already started regular elementary and secondary schools, but the results won't be seen anytime soon. Now, the gangs are spontaneously developing vocational education, which is actually a good way out and very suitable for Gotham City's current situation.

In Gotham, where basic education is lacking, the city operates primarily on empiricism, and gangs are family-run, passing down their businesses from generation to generation, with each generation teaching the others step by step.

This model may have worked in the past, but it is not so good now. It is foreseeable that with the introduction of new industries and the gradual upgrading of existing industries, this vocational education will become more and more prosperous in Gotham, and will continue until the results of basic education become apparent.

As a professor, Schiller was in a position to do his job, and he didn't mind giving the opportunity to push things along. So he accepted the invitation and prepared to go and see what kind of mess the Gotham gangsters could make of this vocational school this weekend.