I am on summer vacation. This isn't a figure of speech. My contract is nine months long. This month is not one of the nine. I am off contract. Free. Free to be me. Free to read trashy genre novels and eat lunch when I damned well feel like it, wake up when I want, get drunk if I want, study stuff that interests me, do my own research without the university breathing down my back. Free.So, dear university administrators and colleagues:
STOP CALLING MEETINGS!
I do not want to go in to the office, put on long pants and a jacket in this goddamned heat, and sit and listen to another pointless bitchfest. If you are lonely for human company, do what I do: get friends. Or hire an escort. Talk to your stuffed animals. Whatever: just leave me out of it.
Either that, or pay me.
I'd bet you'd be all over the 200+ page book we were recently assigned for faculty workshop.
ReplyDeleteSomething of mine might end up all over it, that's for sure.
DeleteHa! Comment of the week for me....
Delete"get drunk if I want"
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to drinking during the dreaded 9-month period, in which drinking is more of a need.
Abuse, pure and simple. Can't you tell them you're out of town? I know a small town would make this hard, but I've opted out of all kinds of non-contract-time things with "visits" to my great aunt in Boothbay Harbor.
ReplyDeleteOr, if surprised by someone you know while shopping (or whatever), you could claim to be your identical twin, house-sitting for yourself while you're away. Or, if you've been meaning to experiment with cross-dressing anyway, your fraternal twin.
DeleteWith a little work, there's a sitcom somewhere in there. Each week, enterprising proffie finds a new way to avoid overbearing administrator.
A sitcom? I think there's an Oscar Wilde play in there somewhere! Bunburyists unite!
DeleteYES!! Bunburying to the rescue!
DeleteSounds like an out-of-office auto-reply is in order.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully simple: no need for an excuse. :)
DeleteThey can call whatever they want.
ReplyDeleteI learned the hard way not to answer e-mail during what's supposed to be vacation, especially when it's unpaid. If you just ignore e-mail, though, you get a dozen similar but increasingly panicky e-mail messages the next day, and even more the following day. So, I send out forged automatic-reply, "vacation" messages, like this:
ReplyDeleteDear Correspondant,
Prof. Frankenstein is out of the office, doing research at Mount Jennings Observatory in Chicago. He will read your e-mail message on August 31, after Fall semester begins.
If anyone spots you in town between now and then, remind them you're a "jet-setter," and your plane for Perth Obswrvatory is tomorrow.
I have a colleague who likes to call meetings in summer to plan things for fall. This is because s/he is behind the eight ball during the spring, when the planning should be happening. Hir presence in my life is usually one that I like, so I've often gone.
ReplyDeleteNot this summer.
This summer, I am teaching my hybrid accelerated course one night a week, and answering emails from my students, and the occasional question from a subordinate. Once the course ends in two weeks, I am turning on the out-of-office email for the first 3 weeks of August. And I am not going to any damned meetings until after the contract year begins. And I am not sorry.
More and more, the summer is filled with meetings at LD3C. I don't go. I'm not going to go. I'm not getting paid to go. The end.
ReplyDeleteI can sympathize with faculty's desire to escape, but the business of the University does go on whether you are here or not. So, here's the trade off. It's fine if you don't want to be involved in any University decision-making process while you are "off the clock," but in exchange don't moan and groan about any of the decisions that had to be made while you aren't around. I think it sounds like a fair trade-off to me!
ReplyDeleteI think it's fair that the university abide by the contract they offered me. If they wanted me for twelve months, they can PAY me for twelve months.
DeleteSure! Just no griping about the ouctomes when we have to make University-critical decisions without your imput. That's the rule. Well, that and no sex in the champagne room.
DeleteI have zero delusions that any input I might offer at any meeting whatsoever will ever have the slightest impact on the administration's decisions.
DeleteOh, it does happen. My provost tried to break up our College of Science and Mathematics, and our College of Arts and Humanities. He was genuinely surprised by the ensuing outcry by the faculty and especially the major donors, so he reneged, and is now on his way to become president of another university, God help them. But mercifully, this all happened during the school year; summers he spent doing things like ordering the cutting-down of over 100 trees, which most faculty wouldn't have cared much about except that by then, he was cruising for a bruising.
DeleteStill, I always hate whenever anyone's lack of foresight is assumed to an emergency on my part. All business concerning me really ought to be carried out during a time of year when I'm getting paid, since what of they need my help for anything?