the "things you wish you could say" thread

[polly_mer]

I can say from experience that being JimBob sucks and it's an uphill battle to be allowed the mic the third time.

[OneMoreYear]

Next time, let assistant provost JimBob do all the talking. He made a much better impression than you did at faculty meeting. He gave clear, concise answers the few times you let him speak. He also answered the question asked, instead of launching into obviously canned responses that we're vaguely related to question.

(Faculty senate grilled president and provost today.)

Our grilling in scheduled for next week. May we borrow Assistant Provost JimBob so we might actually get some of the questions answered?

Only if you swear on your life and magic that you'll return him promptly. Also, we need at least a million dollar cash deposit as a guarantee. Plus your three best faculty and favorite relative as hostages. Maybe a bottle of good scotch, too.

Yeah, so it turns out, according to upper administration, our hostage negotiators were furloughed during the latest "University Commitment to Excellence" initiative, so unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to make that exchange.

Further, I have been told that, according to TPS report 143, section A, subsection 42, part G.86b, your Assistant Provost JimBob is banned from speaking on our campus until he completes the required Administrative Training 101f: Superintend Obfuscation with Protracted Disquisition.

[Vkw10]

Everyone declined your meeting request because you didn't bother to check calendars. That's why everyone declined your last meeting, too. We will all decline the one you sent this time, too, since it's during the general faculty meeting. By the way, you're on the agenda for the general faculty meeting. You might want to put it on your calendar.

[FishProf]

I don't have cable TV anymore!!

[polly_mer]

I don't have cable TV anymore!!

I love my cable TV, especially with the new apps that mean the streaming services are also checked when I do a search.

[OneMoreYear]

Next time, let assistant provost JimBob do all the talking. He made a much better impression than you did at faculty meeting. He gave clear, concise answers the few times you let him speak. He also answered the question asked, instead of launching into obviously canned responses that we're vaguely related to question.

(Faculty senate grilled president and provost today.)

We seriously needed your assistant provost JimBob in our recent meeting. I can't even describe the level of meaningless buzzwords that were thrown out as justification for recent decision-making.  Requests for clarification were completely ignored.  Then an administrator actually said that they didn't want to provide specific examples because that would "direct the discussion." The meeting dissolved from there.

[fishbrains]

It's amazing you didn't notice that when you charged up that hill to die, you were tripping over the decaying corpses of the many people who charged before you did.

But it was fun to watch.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I am so tired of dealing with your ignorance. You cannot prove that China deliberately infected the world with a virus. Why am I even trying to have a conversation with you?

[apl68]

No, you still don't really want me to lay you off.  You've had two weeks of COVID-19 leave, and a week of normally accrued sick time.  You've got about another week of time put back.  After that I can either put you on unpaid medical leave--which will let you keep your insurance, your past two years of retirement contributions, and your job. 

Or I can lay you off, in which case you might, after a wait of some weeks (Have you been keeping up with the news regarding problems with unemployment coverage, by the way?), draw more than your paycheck--but you'll lose your insurance and your retirement contributions, and I won't be holding your job open for you. 

You can't have your cake and eat it too, as your question regarding whether you could apply for unemployment while on unpaid medical leave with insurance suggests you believe.  Perhaps I'm wrong to suspect malingering here, but your previous ambition to be laid off during the shutdown so you could collect more money for sitting at home makes me less inclined to grant benefit of the doubt. 

If you still really want to be laid off, I can accommodate you, but we need somebody here doing your job.  We are supposed to be essential workers, after all.  If that can't be you, it will have to be somebody else.  That's a lot to give up for a few months worth of generous unemployment benefits that you'll have a hard time collecting and that Congress can't be depended upon to keep going.

[Vkw10]

No, you still don't really want me to lay you off.  You've had two weeks of COVID-19 leave, and a week of normally accrued sick time.

My sympathies. I've had a few similar conversations, where I've almost bitten my tongue not saying what I was thinking.

[Harlow2]

Asking us to continually work out of contract and changing—and changing again— the plan for instruction three weeks prior to the start of the semester is contributing to low morale. Blaming the governor only gets you so far.

[RatGuy]

No, my Ninja Turtle shirt isn't my way of secretly signalling that I'm a pedophile-ally, nor is my vintage Magnum PI floral print shirt a way of secretly signalling white supremacists. That you keep telling other people those things means you're a toxic moron.

[ergative]

Co-authors X & Y, you are a pleasure to work with. I particularly like how you promptly answer emails, catch typos and overlooked points, and send me full citations and proposed transitional text to include those citations into the main body.

Co-author Z, you suck. You never answer emails, went silent for a year, and when you do send me proposed text, it's turgid sludge that requires three rounds of emails (at least you did deign to ansewr those) before I can figure out what you intended to say so I can rewrite it entirely into something comprehensible. I'm never, ever working with you ever again.

[mamselle]

I wish I could say, ''I actually do understand how you can write such a beautiful meditation on the one hand, and be such a terrible team player on the other. I just wish you'd grow up and take to heart the things you write, and apply them to how you relate to others."

M.

[the_geneticist]

The fact that I didn't run screaming for the hills when you said that we were "considering" online instruction in Spring is the only reason that 1000+ students had a quality online lab experience.  The least you could do is give me a supply budget.  I'd prefer a raise, a shiny award, and a vacation, but it's hard to keep things rolling with $0 of support.