This week I bailed on two committee meetings and a conference, none of them likely to benefit my department and none of them having anything to do with my research interests. I know the university functions on the willingness of faculty members to undertake volunteer committee work. I also know what the university rewards me for, in terms of merit pay and promotion, and guess what? It's not committee work.
I also haven't handed back a quiz yet.
Please tell me I am not the only Bad Academic out there ...
Type...is...too....small....to........read......
ReplyDeleteFailed, for another week, to finish the edits on the manuscript and send it in, months later than I promised. Forgot to stick review stuff up on Blackboard until prompted by Keener Snowflake. Am on theoretical four day weekend so ignoring student e-mails for advising appointments.
ReplyDeleteI cancelled office hours, and told our department secretary it was to meet with a student. It was actually to meet a friend for lunch (who technically is a student, at a CC, and wants to transfer to my Uni, and we did discuss classes, so I might not technically have been lying...)
ReplyDeleteCanceled office hours, did not meet with independent study student, nearly fell asleep at the wheel driving home after an 11-hour workday.
ReplyDeleteFailed responsibility to students/job as defined: spent some time I could have spent grading work I've had for a few days working on applications for fellowships that would give me some writing/research time instead.
ReplyDeleteFailed responsibility to self/ongoing career (such as it is): spent some time I probably should have spent working on said fellowship applications making some progress on said grading instead.
Contingent positions are a catch-22: despite the fact that we have much less job security than colleagues for whom research is part of the job description, the activities that make up our official job description are little valued beyond our own institutions (or, for that matter, within them). The activities that *are* valued (outside our institutions, and inside them) aren't in our job descriptions. And, yes, there's increasing pressure to return graded work really, really quickly and be entertaining, neither of which has much to do with doing my actual job -- the one I feel a moral responsibility to perform, whatever the rewards or lack thereof -- well.
I cancelled my classes one day because I couldn't find the desire to care about the 90% of my students that sit in class slack-jawed and drooling.
ReplyDeleteAs the department member responsible for collecting book orders from my colleagues, I completely ignored the 5 voice mails and 12 emails (over 4 days, mind you) from the Bookstore. Admittedly, after 2 voice mails and 3 emails on Monday alone, it was done mostly out of spite.
I spent lots of time posting shit to CM!
ReplyDeleteDidn't do my online office hours. It's something new I'm trying because it allows me to be at home with a cup of coffee instead of my sixth-floor-of-a-decrepit-building-flourescent-lighting-hell of an office. I just didn't sign on. Played Xbox instead. Not like any of my students use the online office hours anyways.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've had their papers for three weeks and they're not even halfway graded. I promised I'd have them back by Wednesday, so I guess I'd better get on my horse.
I snowflaked and missed an appointment with a student for a scheduled appointment. ARGH! I also am late grading some papers, but I was in the hospital for a short time (nothing major) which, I think, legitimately counts as an excuse...
ReplyDeleteI'm late on a referee's report for a book manuscript in my field, about to be late on another (what was I thinking saying yes to two of those?)
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, I did turn in my outside review for someone's tenure case at another institution on time.
You people are all an embarrassment. I thought you were just meek and fearful, but this list of stuff suggests you're more willfully ignorant and lazy.
ReplyDeleteYour college misery is created by yourselves. Ridiculous.
I did pretty well this last week -- dug myself out of a grading hole. But the two weeks prior to that I completely forgot I was teaching two online courses this semester. I let my emails pile up to a point where I couldn't hope to answer them, just to hope in catching up with the grading I covered the problems that students were emailing about.
ReplyDeleteAnd to make it worse, a student complained to the dean about me. The fact that he exaggerated his attempts to contact me didn't make much of a difference. The fact is, I got caught.
And of course, there were reasons I fell so far behind, most of which have to do with the insane number of campus obligations I have this semester. But of course that's no excuse.
I'm up for tenure next year, and I had truly hoped for a "perfect" semester so my evals would be exemplary for once. So much for that.
I did not write that earlier comment attributed to me. I would have been much more critical of the whining in this thread.
ReplyDeleteSo which Jim are you? The bombastic self-righteous one, or the merely self-righteous one? Either way, the party's more fun without you.
ReplyDeleteI think I might work with [a] Jim, and as I've said before, I want to thank your contributions to my inner monologue about what a slime-sucking worm I am. You inspire me to stop before I pull the (literal) trigger on the gun to my head or finish taking that bottle of pills...yes...I stop and I think...
ReplyDeleteHoly crap. I've got 68 kids enrolled in that class next term. If I'm dead, some other poor sucker is going to have to deal with them. WAIT! I know, I'll leave them my SYLLABUS so it will be okay!
True story. often the delay of "I gotta email my syllabus to so-and-so and that will...wait. Wait, they're going to think this is weird. Must! Return! To! Stigma-Concealing! Behavior!" is enough to derail more sinister plans.
Thanks Jim!
Also. I slept a lot yesterday. I do happen to have a raging infection caused by what we might politely term a 'medical error,' which I find hilarious because it came from my first general medicine visit in FOUR YEARS.
Thanks, doc.
And now, to the grading!
My comment at the top (aka the "firstie" as it is known at the AV Club) was real; the font was down to 6 and not 13-14 as usual.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Fab Sun.
That committee meeting that you didn't go to? I went to it. Big effing mistake. The committee chairs have already decided what the committee will decide, based on what our provost has already told them that we are supposed to decide.
ReplyDeleteI missed two deadlines for conference proposals (the two "biggies" in my field). This wouldn't be so bad, except that I missed them last week. Then each conference excitedly e-mailed me to let me know that they had extended their deadlines for a whole 'nother week! And then I missed those, too.
I was very badly organized for a class on Thursday. I actually know the material cold, but it's tricky to present it in a way that students will get if they haven't, uh, done the reading. And aren't paying attention. Yes, normally this would be *their* fault, except that the past few years that I have taught this particular class session, I have written a note to myself in my syllabus: "Organize this better next year!"
I didn't kill anyone when I found out that they hadn't done the very, very basic readings (even though they had a four-day weekend). But I let loose with Bitchybunny when suddenly a whole troupe of them had to go to the bathroom ten minutes before the end of class. "Is there a plague of incontinence?" I asked them. "Sit down. You can hold it for ten more minutes."
I like Jim. He makes the whole rest of the world look sunnier in comparison.
I also think Jim performs a useful function. So does "Jim" for that matter. Either one externalizes my internal critic and gives me a chance to see what an asshole that nasty little internal voice is. Next time I hear it I will be able to visualize it coming from a pathetic, mean-spirited little moron who's never done a day's work in the academic trenches in his life. He's wearing a wussy nametag that says "Hi! I'm Jim, and I'm an idiot!". And he has big Dumbo ears, that stick out.
ReplyDeleteSo thanks, Jimbo, for brightening my whole day. You got more? Bring it.
I marked a ton of essays and then left them at home on the day the class meets, which has to be the worst combination of responsibility and irresponsibility EVER.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I said a bunch of mean stuff about my students on my blog.
I put off grading essays so that I could rest after being sick. I know, right? Like, actually not sacrificing my health for people who couldn't give a fig and who don't actually pay attention to my comments anyway? OMG!
ReplyDeleteI was also pretty snarky here. I was snarky to a couple of snotty snowflakes in person, too. I don't regret either.
I accidentally let out that I didn't pay attention to a certain committee chair's never-ending email when I asked a stupid question related to one of the many dozens of emails said chair has sent since our meeting two weeks ago.
At this moment, I'm opting to garden over grading, when I'm done venting. I will grade later, but I'll be more tired and less efficient.
I read Harry Potter novels all day yesterday and don't regret it one bit!
ReplyDeleteI worked out the rest of the semester -- normally a responsible thing to do. Except I am changing a few days and nixing others (both things I'm expressly not supposed to do as per [useless boss]). I also moved everything around so there isn't class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteI sent a snarky email to a student who decided she needed to tell me that she was "upset" about her paper because she had a billion percent in [intro course] and only missed one question on the ACT (Yeah...I took the ACT a couple of times and I never missed more than one question. Most of the time I got a perfect score. And your paper still blew and shouldn't have gotten the D it did) and how "everybody else was pissed about their grade too!!1!" Fucking blow me.
I am putting off answering one of my good student's emails because he's asking whether he can redo quizzes if he gets accommodations from disability services. I really don't want to let him.
I was fifteen minutes late to a monthly meeting. Why? Because all the new GTAs on my side of the hallway come to me for answers about gradebooks, proofreading every fucking email to students, etc. And I forgot to pay attention to the time. My bad.
I didn't specifically point out which students were being workshopped. Because they didn't look at their emails, three students will be losing a letter grade.
I spent the last three days away from the internet, TV, and all other distractions. I was completely alone with little to do. I spent the nights mostly cleaning and watching movies. Only two of the 12 workshop copies I have to comment on got done. They need to be done Tuesday so I can give them to them.
I'm thinking about pushing their paper due date back a class period. Because I think they'll use the time wisely? No, because I know I won't be grading them this weekend as I have a paper due next week.
*shrug* That's what I've got.
I worked out the rest of the semester -- normally a responsible thing to do. Except I am changing a few days and nixing others (both things I'm expressly not supposed to do as per [useless boss]). I also moved everything around so there isn't class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteI sent a snarky email to a student who decided she needed to tell me that she was "upset" about her paper because she had a billion percent in [intro course] and only missed one question on the ACT (Yeah...I took the ACT a couple of times and I never missed more than one question. Most of the time I got a perfect score. And your paper still blew and shouldn't have gotten the D it did) and how "everybody else was pissed about their grade too!!1!" Fucking blow me.
I am putting off answering one of my good student's emails because he's asking whether he can redo quizzes if he gets accommodations from disability services. I really don't want to let him.
I was fifteen minutes late to a monthly meeting. Why? Because all the new GTAs on my side of the hallway come to me for answers about gradebooks, proofreading every fucking email to students, etc. And I forgot to pay attention to the time. My bad.
I didn't specifically point out which students were being workshopped. Because they didn't look at their emails, three students will be losing a letter grade.
I spent the last three days away from the internet, TV, and all other distractions. I was completely alone with little to do. I spent the nights mostly cleaning and watching movies. Only two of the 12 workshop copies I have to comment on got done. They need to be done Tuesday so I can give them to them.
I'm thinking about pushing their paper due date back a class period. Because I think they'll use the time wisely? No, because I know I won't be grading them this weekend as I have a paper due next week.
*shrug* That's what I've got.
If I'm not failing as a responsible academic, I'm failing as a parent, housekeeper (want to see my laundry piles?) or homeowner in my neighborhood (want to see my weeds?).
ReplyDeleteThis will be the third day in a row I get home late to my husband and 12-year-old son. I'm trying to catch up with revising an official course outline for the ol' rubber stamp, and I have paperwork waiting about course articulation between my 2-year school and a 4-year in another county.
Every day I have an office hour and teach either 2 or 3 90-min classes back to back and make sure I'm prepared for the next day. I'm currently up to date on grading, but next week starts another round, so I'd better get the committee and curriculum shit done now.
What I'd LOVE to be doing is updating my courses, making better PowerPoint slides that reflect a smoother presentation, and working with students on National Basketweaving Month activities and displays to publicize our little discipline on campus.
Meanwhile my colleagues have told me, anonymously in peer evaluations, that I should socialize more, eat lunch with them, and attend more evening and weekend department events (6 so far this semester).