The Fuck You Post

Hiram and others want a little of that frisson that the site used to give them. Before it was dying, I mean. They want it to be a little less like a Crampicle Forum with extra swearing.

Well Fuck You.

And while I'm busy handing out the Fuck You's, here's a few more:

To Little Snowy the underflake: You're upset that you scored a C- on the midterm, even though you simply failed to answer the last question (worth 20% of the total grade)? Well Fuck You (and please invest in a calculator).

To Big Snowy the Grad-avalanche: My comments on your chapter make you want to change careers? You think I should be "a little more generous and a little less perfectionist?" Well Fuck You (and get a backbone for fuck's sake).

To Unicorn the Junior Colleague: You don't have the time or patience to do any undergrad advising? You think that your time is better spent on the grads? Well Fuck You (and here's a list of my undergrad advisees for you to contemplate).

To T-Rex the senior colleague: You think that Fifty Shades of Grey is a how-to-manual for relating to the junior faculty? Well Fuck You (and not in the fun way).

To the colleague from another department who showed up, completely out of the blue at the University Committee I'm on: You aren't on the committee, and you haven't actually done any of the work we did, but you still want to come in here and tell us what we should decide? Well Fuck You (and if you want to make these decisions so badly here's my spot on the committee. Please to fucking enjoy).

To Dean Dumbass: You do realize that when you say that all vacated tenure-stream positions in the department will be replaced with new tenure-stream hires that some of us are able to do basic addition and subtraction right? Well Fuck You (preferably with a copy of the salary schedule for the vast army of administrators the university employs).

To the Physical Plant Peckerhead who keeps sending me hate mail: You are angry that I am not obeying your instructions to stop setting snap traps in my office? Yes, I get that the building is really fucking old and that we do live in a modern urban vermin environment. But did you see the size of the mouse I caught this morning? Well Fuck You (with a really big snap trap).

Huzzah for Archie!

With the exception of collaborating on, not just one, but two amazing songs with him, I only know Archie through his appearances on Rate Your Students and College Misery.

He's one of those people you wish you had as a real world colleague. Glad to hear he'll be around again!

XOXO
Cal

PS: Here's my favorite Archie post from the goon old days.

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Thursday, December 25, 2008

Angry Archie from Allentown Dusts Off the Wiki Generation.

Yes, I made this
horrible image.

Raise your hand if you know about the Job Wiki. If you don’t, check it out: it is an unguided tour through the rocky shoals of upper-division snowflakiness. I discovered the thing because some of my grad-flakes mentioned it to me. Big mistake that was. Don't they know never to let their flake-flag fly in public?

Anyway, I’m on a search committee this year, so I went to see what the world of wiki-flakes was saying about our search. Afterwards I felt dirty and soiled, kind of like when you slow down to rubberneck at the scene of an accident and what you see is an 86 Camaro that rear-ended an 86 Mazda pickup, and two dudes with mulletts who just escaped from the trailer park and clearly have no insurance are duking it out because they both wanted to play real-life Grand Turismo 5 on the freeway at rush hour. So to spare you the pain, or perhaps to get you to go rubber-neck too, I am offering the following guide to the job wiki. Caveat Emptor: I looked at the wiki in my discipline, but it looks like there is one for every discipline. So just choose your particular poison and enjoy snowflakery at its finest.

THE REST

Flakes.

lyrics by Angry Archie

musical realization and ruination by Compound Cal

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based on the rick rubin / johnny cash arrangement

of trent reznor's "hurt"

necessary apologies

Angry Archie from Allentown.

Please Come Back.

xoxoxo

Fab Sun


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PS: Would everyone be happier with
this new version of the avatar?

Archie Sez: Let's play a game.

Oh yeah motherfuckers. It's on!

And for the record, I could easily be a contestant on this one.

Archie here, with the latest Crampicle Hyperbole

Hey you. Yeah you. You're a crappy fucking advisor. Did anyone ever tell you that?

Now I'm not saying that the problem this column identifies doesn't exist, because, well, some of what she says describes a few of my colleagues quite well. But... how much can she be making if she is billing grad students by the hour?

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

The fucking flava:

To: Professors; Re: Your Advisees

By Karen Kelsky

Dear faculty members: I sell Ph.D. advising services on the open market. And your Ph.D. students are buying. Why? Because you're not doing your job.

Lest you think that by advising, I mean editing research papers and dissertations, let me disabuse you. I offer those services, but rarely am I asked for them.

And here's the fucking link.

Discuss (like you won't).

Why your dissertation sucked, or will someday suck.

OK, so sue me, but this makes me think of "Katie," if only because in one of "Katie's" RYS posts she bragged about how her committee told her that her dissertation was already good enough to be a book, which is how she had always known that she was a star.

But on a serious note, the article does point to a fairly pervasive problem with the way that advisors and committees handle grad students and their dissertations. I've always tried to be honest, sometimes brutally so (I know, real fucking surprise there, right?) when I've been on a committee. And, of course, I'm always straight with my advisees. But when I'm not the lead advisor, I have often found that my brutal but honest advice gets drowned out by the colleagues who want to be all fucking positive. I hate those fuckers, and I hope that someday they get hit by a bus with "you're doing a GREAT JOB crossing the street" written on the front of it.

One thing the article doesn't address is the fact that English (the author is an English proffie) and History are almost the only disciplines left for which a book is still the central exhibit of the tenure file. Indeed, in some fields a book can be seen as a black mark, or pointless in comparison to journal articles. He also doesn't address the fact that at lots of English and History departments, including where he teaches, one can now substitute a certain number of refereed articles for a book. Still, I like Cassuto's columns. His advice is generally thoughtful and solid.

And for all you grad students and junior proffies out there, go buy the book he mentions. It is an invaluable tool, which I highly recommend.

Anyway, here's the fucking flava:

My last column centered on the new difficulties that graduate students face in turning their dissertations into books. Some readers responded that plenty of dissertations shouldn't be revised into books in the first place. Indeed.

and here's the fucking link.

Did I get it right this time?

Business Proffie surrenders in the face of rampant cheating

This was in the Crampicle of higher Ed, and I have to say, it made me a little queasy. As a friend of mine who works for one of the companies that every ambitious undergrad wants to work for once told me "when we see an undergrad degree in business on a resume, we read that as code for "moron" and throw the thing in the recycle bin." With that in mind, this proffie obviously shouldn't have been surprised to learn that his business students were stupid, rat-fucking, cheaters. On the other hand, he waited seven years to start enforcing any rules against cheating? So maybe business proffies are also rat-fuckers who make it harder on the rest of our sorry asses by being lax and easygoing. On the third hand, NYU uses student evals as a criterion for merit raises???? What kind of sorry-ass third-rate shitbox are they running there? (parenthetically, I know someone who teaches there, and he informs me that to his knowledge none of the departments in the Arts and Sciences use evals for that purpose, so that brings me back to my first point--business students are fucking lame, and so, apparently, are their proffies).

Anyways, without further ado, the flava:

A New Angry Archie Game: The Real Mail Mablib

For the doldrums of summer, inspired by the whining about links, a fun mablib game for the CM wits out there.

And by the way, if you think this post is directed at you; mocks you; minimizes you; makes sport of you; insults you; marginalizes you; and/or is intentionally mean-spirited in a highly personalized and individualized way...

you are almost certainly right. Why don't you write Fab an email of complaint.

Dear _(Noun)_,

I don't like the way you _(Verb)_ your favorites and _(verb)_ their posts and comments, while _(Gerund)_ mine. I have a lot of _(adjective)_(noun)_ _(infinitive)_ to his page, and I don't _(verb)_ the way my _(adjective)_ contributions get _(verb)_.

Also, I _verb)_ really, really _(verb)_ the _(plural noun)_ that some people post. Could you _(verb)_ those people _(infinitive)_ so that I can _(verb)_ my _(noun)_.

I was so _(adverb)_ that I showed my _(noun)_ to my friends, and they _(verb)_ that you were _(adverb)_ _(verb)_ me by _(verb)_ my _(noun)_ like that. If you continue _(infinitive)_ then I will _(verb)_ _(gerund)_ the page. Then you will be _(adverb)_ _(verb)_.

_(verb)_ you.

OK kids, go to it...

Archie's here, with a new game for old CMers

So I'm still in the Hizzy, in case you were wondering. My sabbatical is winding down. I know this because the dean called me at home today to ask for a favor. Blech. Also, I went down to campus last week to see the stack of mail in my office and count how many books the visiting person who was using it "borrowed" this time (answer, as far as I could tell, only one).

Anyway, as I was walking towards my building, I had the distinct displeasure of overhearing snippets of snowflaky conversation coming from gaggles of students walking the other way. Since I only heard the first half of a bunch of flakery, I thought I'd do a little crowdsourcing to figure out what they were really saying. So, all you have to do is insert the second clause to the following real goddamned flake sentences:

1) "I know I'm not the epitome of hygiene or anything, but ..."

2) OK, sure, I don't spend that much time in the library, but ..."

3) So then I asked for an extension, but ..."

4) Sure, I get that there's a final exam schedule and everything, but ..."

5) I know you're a total moron, but ..."

Special bonus points to anyone who can finish the sentence I spoke to the obnoxious French tourist who actually contradicted me when I politely explained that the attraction he was looking for is in a city a few hundred miles away.

"Je sais que vous n'avez pas besoin d'une guide, mais ... "

Happy New Year Miserians. Archie's here with a dangerous challenge.

Alright you miserable wretches,

I'm headed to Boston for the AHA. I am not giving a paper. I am not on a search committee. I'm not a job seeker. You will not find me on the program. But I do have some obligatory business to transact there, so that's where I'll be. I don't know yet whether I'll resurrect my RYS AHA reportage, but if the muse strikes, I may do that too.

In the meantime, I have a CM gimmick in mind. On Saturday the 7th at around 1:00 PM or so, I will slide myself onto a stool in one of the hotel bars to watch some football and enjoy an adult beverage or two. If you think you can figure out who I am, here is the challenge and response:

Challenge: What color is the sky on your planet?

Response: Bourbon Red

First person to figure it out can drink on my tab.

Archie

Archie drops off an audioshizzle on why we are fucked.

Nothing earth-shattering here. I was just interested to actually hear it on the radio. I admit I hadn't heard of her or her book, but she hits the highlights reasonably well, I thought.

An awesomely, awesome vidshizzle that is not really about students

OK, fess up. Which one of you fucksticks is responsible for this awesomely awesome vidshizzle?

Archie does a drive-by and leaves an early thirsty in his wake.

OK CMers. Despite all the sound and fury signifying nothing that emerged in the comments, Froderick’s post about letters of recommendation, did generate a discussion about the professional ethics of writing for students. This got me thinking about other ethically tricky areas some of us face. Here’s one that I’ve been actively considering lately:

I teach at a top-ten PhD program in my discipline. We are one of the largest departments (in terms of faculty) of basket weaving, and we offer Ph.D.s in every imaginable form of basket-weaving. I have three other colleagues (four, depending on how you count) in my own field, which makes us an attractive place to do graduate work—most places only have perhaps two of us. We only admit fully-funded students, which means the departmental cohort each year is actually quite small relative to many other programs. So my immediate colleagues and I usually get to admit a single student each year, since the limited number of offers have to be spread around to all the various basket-weaving fields that the department offers.If one of the other fields underyields, we might get a crack at a second offer, but that rarely happens.

Every Fall I get anywhere from 20 to 25 inquiries from flakes of various stripes who are getting ready to apply to work with me, or with someone in my immediate field. Our little corner of the department usually gets something on the order of 50 applicants, so these inquiries represent a substantial portion of the final applicant pool. Many of them ask to speak to me over the phone, or in some cases come in for a meeting. Usually a 30 or 40 minute phone conversation or meeting is enough to tell me whether a particular person has even a snowflake’s chance in hell of being the one student we admit into our area.

So the dilemma is this: I am always up-front with them about the fact that they are competing for what amounts to a single slot. Should I also tell them to save their fifty dollars and not bother applying if it is obvious they won’t make even the first cut? Keep in mind that the administration doles out the funding packages based on how many applicants a particular department attracts. So we have a perverse interest in encouraging applications, even from students we know don’t have a prayer. Moreover, keeping the application numbers high in my own specific field helps us keep our slot from being handed over to someone else in the department who can claim that his or her field deserves more slots because it gets more applicants.

What is the right thing to do? To those of you who are in departments like mine, how do you handle it? To those of you who are not, how would you have wanted to be treated in this situation? Would you want/have wanted to know that you were just paying a fee for the privilege of getting rejection letter in return?

p.s. Stultissimus magnissimusque culeus pro cunnum purgare, aut in Latino respondum aut tu ipse pedicandum est.

Some Vidshizzle on the Kindle Question

Even for the linguistically challenged, the idea should be clear. Please to enjoy.

Top Ten Best Things About Being On Sabbatical

With apologies to The Beaker.

10. Get to sit at the computer in my underpants every day, not just Fridays. And without the harassment suits too.

9. Get to set my autoreply to “I’ll get back to you when I get back to you.”

8. Lots of pencils, lots of books, without the students’ dirty looks.

7. Get to say “not just no, but fuck no” to unsolicited requests for my time.

6. Research!!! Did I mention I get to write up the results in my underpants?

5. And with a beer in my hand.

4. Extra time to plot the destruction of my institution and everyone in it.

3. My calendar for this semester includes a plenary lecture at a Mediterranean resort, a research trip to one of the best wine regions in the world, and not much else.

2. You say that my letter of rec didn’t get there in time? Please see #9.

1. I haven’t interacted with an undergrad since May 2nd and my next interaction with one is still slightly more than a year away.