Like most potentially troublesome students, I had thought that Mr. Phuckhead would blend in with the rest of hoarde and eventually stop showing up. I was wrong.
He's been a constant low level irritant with the snide comments and other passive aggressive bullshit, but not as bad as I was expecting. He must have been saving up.
Tonight he shows up to my evening office hours, which are held in the dining commons of a freshman dorm.
I'm sitting across the table from two girls, Stressed Sophie and On-task Orla. We had been talking class content and how to manage time and stress during exams.
This is the "conversation" as best as I can remember it.
Physicist Phuckhead: These are the weirdest office hours.
Me, Stressed Sophie, and On-task Orla: .........
PP, looming above the table: What are you working on?
OO: basket copying
PP: The easy stuff or the hard stuff?
OO: Well, the...
PP: I guess it's all easy. (rounds on Stressed Sophie) What are you working on?
SS: Having enough time on the test.
PP: That's literally the only thing I've never had trouble with on tests. I've had trouble with finishing too quickly and not copying off my neighbor but that's about it.
-OO and I try to get back on task.-
OO: So this fold of the reed here, is that near the pointy end?
PP: You don't know that?
OO (bless her): I came to office hours to get help.
PP: What? You should only go to office hours where you already know everything that way you get to feel smug. You can't buy that kind of smug. Well I guess you can, however much I pay in tuition buys this smug feeling.
Me: However much that is I don't see enough of it.
PP: Oh, uh...
PP: walks away
Q:
UPDATE!
I pulled him aside after class.
Me: Your behavior last night was completely inappropriate. You came to office hours only to belittle the other students, and that is not ok.
PP: Understood.
Me: If you want to come to learn or to help others learn, that's ok, but if you are only coming to stroke your own ego, then don't come.
PP: Understood.
So, we'll see where this goes. His deadpan response to being called on the carpet is way more creepy than if he'd continued the massive narcissist routine.
It seems that you did address it. Your response to his jackassery was subtle yet effective, so the 'burn' you gave him may be enough to prevent him from showing up to your office hours again and acting like such a phuckhead. (The key word there is 'may.')
ReplyDeleteI'd flat-out tell him that no one likes smug. It's bad to go through life as a grinning idiot, regardless of what you think you know. Office hours are primarily for students who want extra help learning: if all you're going to do is regale us with your opinion of yourself, I'll ask you to leave, because the rest of us have no use for it. Then I'd tell him to come to Prof. Frankenstien's upper-level physics class, where people like him are given a run for their money at precisely what they think they do best.
ReplyDeleteI hate it when fellow scientists act this way. I feel like I have a retarded relative, about whose antics I have to say to decent people, "Sorry about that, he's with me..."
P.S. It's pronounced, "FrankenSTIEN"!
ReplyDeleteWait a minute--YOU have to go to THEM for your "office" hours?! Jeebus-effing-Christmas trees in America.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on how much he's getting to the other students. If they're rolling their eyes and waiting for him to go away, and he goes away relatively soon, no great harm done. On the other hand, if his antics are making Sophie more stressed and/or putting Orla off task, in office hours or in class, then you need to pull him aside and lay down some rules for behavior (e.g. not offering advice or commentary on other students' work unless that's an explicit part of a class exercise).
ReplyDeleteFroderick... I dearly wish I could send him to you. and then sit back and watch the fallout. I'll even make popcorn!
ReplyDeleteMrs. C- well yes, but seeing as I don't really have my own space, having OH at a place and time where they'll actually show up makes some sense. It's also through a departmental program, so I get paid a tiny bit extra for my trouble.
Cassandra- Sophie and Orla were completely shut down by him. Not talking, looking at their papers. It was bad.
"How should I address this since he bailed precisely when his behavior became intolerable?"
ReplyDeleteLower the threshold on intolerable and say, "That's why I'm so grateful for students like Orla and Sophie."
The time to pull him aside is the next time you see him, then, if he's shutting the other students down. You can tell him that his behaviour is unacceptable, etc, but you can also tell him that on a personal note, condescending to people and insulting them impresses no one, if he was hoping that this was a good way to impress girls a.k.a. get laid.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me as if he has emotional maturity issues (duh), but now is a great time to discover the world of age-appropriate behaviour.
I had office hours in a dining hall. Way more people came to my office hours than when I had them in my office. I understand that we shouldn't sink to their level blah blah blah BUT the food at our dining hall kicked some serious ass, and it was nice to sit in a big, open, airy space, eat some stuff, and see my students. I quite enjoyed it and would do it again if the dining halls at my current schools did not resemble stockyard feeding operations quite so closely.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I would say something to him directly. I have a real passion for seeing women succeed in science, and it burns my biscuits when people belittle their efforts...my biscuits get especially toasty when it's somebody with a Y chromosome doing the belittling. I think I would go with "Your actions infringe on other students' learning. You KNOW that is the behavior I most loathe."
I am trying to come up with a suitable punishment for the next infraction...but I don't know of one actually. I think mainly saying "This is totally inappropriate" would be a good first salvo, and then perhaps moving on to speaking with deans etc. if it continues. (He IS disrupting learning, after all.)
ARRRRGH, annoying physics know-it-alls! ARRRGGGGH.
Thanks for the update. That *is* creepy. I'd be inclined to make a preemptive visit to Counseling Services, or a Dean of Students, or someone along those lines, to describe what you've observed, and see if they have any input (this, of course, assumes the person with whom you would be consulting is competent; if there's any way to check out which of the various alternatives at your university is most competent, I'd do that first). It sounds like he has been called on the carpet before, and has developed a routine for dealing with it -- and it also sounds like there may be a long, complicated, and probably disturbing history behind the development of that routine.
ReplyDeleteOn the brighter side, you articulated the problem with his behavior really well, and, given the effect on his classmates, that needed to happen.
Could be a number of things:
ReplyDeletePerhaps he has Asperger's. Perhaps he is an alpha-male (although belittling two females would be counter productive to that kind of personality.)
Perhaps the guy is just a complete asshole who needs to be put in his place. It's good that you were able to get with him and call him out on the carpet. Document everything and involve administration if it continues.
Have you verified that he is, in fact, knowledgeable about physics? Did he get in A in any physics classes? Or does he only live up to the second part of his name?
ReplyDeleteCassandra... oh I'm documenting the hell out of this. We've got a hotline thingy for "concerning behavior" but I''m not sure exactly how they define concerning. Is "I think my student is a sociopath" concerning enough without any hint of violence?
ReplyDeleteCrazyprof... IANAD and all that, but he doesn't read as an aspie. He reads as if he's calculating the reaction to every word he says.
Schmitty... I had been taking his word for it, but I just checked. yup Physics/Astronomy double major, Junior standing. Only taking my freshman level natural sciences because grad schools want it.
If he is indeed calculating the reaction to every word he says, then he's going to back off in your case now. He tested, you drew a line, now he'll stop.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm glad you're documenting everything, because what a creep.
Yeah, I deal with people like this on a daily basis. This is the physics department: these people make computer scientists look normal. Anytime I start to feel sorry for one because they are so socially maladjusted, invariably he or she (and yes, females of the species have become noticeably numerous in recent years, and they can be just as bad) will then say or do something so repulsive, all sympathy evaporates instantly. It's too bad that, because of their technical skills, too many people are willing to overlook their lack of ability to get along with people, since in the long run, their people skills are what will allow them to hold down any kind of a job.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, if one is rude to me, and I subsequently catch him making a technical error, oh boy do I have fun with THAT.
He sounds like a fun guy, I'd love to have him as a party guest....Isis, you are totally in the right to keep a journal on Mr. Phuckhead and that office's number on speed dial. Though he might be pulling some sort of demented homage to the mindgames/bipolar freakout of Charlie Sheen, don't ask me why.
ReplyDelete@Froderick...I used to feel badly about making Atom Smasher come with me to Starvistan Studies parties. And then I went to a Physics party. A "party." And I didn't feel guilty anymore.
ReplyDelete