Appropriate Complaining

Jeez. The week began with a CC of an email that the president sent in reply to a colleague, Dr. C, who had lodged a long-winded whiny complaint to said president about the rooms assigned to him for his exam. Let me summarize by saying that he felt that the university needs to add a building to include enough classrooms with sufficient space for his teaching and office needs. Dr. C's ego is so wide, he has to enter a door sideways.

The president was not amused, neither was I.

I requested that Dr. C show up in my office Tuesday afternoon, but since he didn't read his email until Wednesday, I was able to spend the half an hour sorting through piles of paper on my desk.

I managed to spear him from the hallway in time for a shake-down before he was to speak with the president on Thursday. I tried to explain to him that it makes more sense for him to complain to me, or even better to my room administrator, if he is unhappy about his room assignment.

But it turned out that he just plain felt unloved. He's had all sorts of great ideas these past months, and none of them have been acted on. Might I mention that those that were not completely off the wall cost far too much money? And if I gave him what he wanted, then I'd have 72 others in here begging for money as well?

Oh, and we moved them into a new building about a month ago and he still needs additional shelves and his cork board hung up and an eraser and some whiteboard pens and some paper and the garbage can is the wrong color (no, I made up that last one). And there is no coffee machine in this building, he has to put on a coat and walk to the next building to get a cup of coffee. And the building isn't finished yet so the workers are making an awful noise and he can't concentrate.

And his exam problem? He likes to have 2 empty seats between students, not 1, and that won't work in the room we gave him. I suggested he print half the exams on yellow paper, the other half on green and tell the flakes they are two different exams.

He continued on with about 17 other things that I wrote down and investigated today. None, exactly none, of the complaints are legitimate. Some things he was complaining about we did at the express, written request of his department head.

He in turn spent 2 hours speaking with the president in detail about all the problems again. Why on *earth* the president didn't have his secretary remind him about an important meeting after half an hour is beyond me.

Total amount of time spent on Dr. C.'s whining this week? >4 hours for me, 2.5 for the pres. I hope it was worth it.