the "things you wish you could say" thread

[sinenomine]

Chair who reports to me: your unilateral choice four weeks in to the semester to try to move a course to a different day, a different time, and off site upset students, infuriated senior administration, and wasted hours of numerous days for me. Figure out how a college works and stop being a pain in the [bleep]!

[apl68]

Page 100!  That's a lot of things the people wish they could have said.

[mamselle]

+1

Gagging on so many swallowed words....

M.

[statsgeek]

Asynchronous =/= work entirely at your own pace

Just got my second email from a student who *needs* to add my course a week or more after the add/drop period.  No.  We're too far into the semester and you've missed too much to catch up successfully.  So odds are you either won't pass or you will do something against honor code in a desperate attempt to pass and either way I'll have to deal with the fallout. 

[the_geneticist]

No prerequisites =/= no effort
I have a handful of students every quarter who are SHOCKED that they have to do things like: go to class, pay attention, turn in their assignments.
This class is very well-scaffolded with formative assignments, interactive lessons, and will go pretty in-depth into [real-world baskets for non-basket folks].
We expect you to think about the materials, participate in class, and ask questions.  We just don't expect you to have any prior knowledge from math or chemistry.

[AmLitHist]

<unrelated to any above>

It was so nice when you were gone for a few months! Too bad you came back.

[Harlow2]

You want the faculty to increase research productivity and yet each year you dump more unnecessary administrative work on us. Inter thread duality with my complaint in venting about losing our administrative assistants.

[paultuttle]

You want the faculty to increase research productivity and yet each year you dump more unnecessary administrative work on us. Inter thread duality with my complaint in venting about losing our administrative assistants.

This is so true, speaking from the perspective of a research administrator and research development professional, it's a crying shame how much administrative work faculty investigators have to do to support their research.

In other professions, things are different: We wouldn't dream of asking lawyers to maintain their own files or doctors to sort scalpels after autoclaving them, or even asking mid-level managers in business settings to keep their own meeting schedules. And yet faculty members--whose brains are the drivers of their professions and the majority of the innovation advancers for society in general--waste approximately 30-50 percent of their time on trivial BS. Our culture's/nation's priorities are incredibly bass-ackwards.

_____

Looking forward to being able to say "the fall colors are here!"

[apl68]

On the other hand, if you're a librarian, it's not at all unusual for you to have to do all the payroll and bill paying and other assorted paperwork for your institution.  Which I've just spent this morning doing, as I do every Wednesday.

[hmaria1609]

To patron: you said that it would be your last one 4 times already!

[ergative]

Why why why why why would anyone ever decide to scent toilet paper!? Scented feminine hygiene products were horrible enough a discovery, but at least I can sort of understand why, once you squint past the misogyny. But toilet paper? It's a one-use item! The moment it 'needs' scent is the moment you discard it! All it does in the meantime is stink up my bathroom with its chemical horribleness.

I'm so sick of having to be alert for godawful marketing decisions when I just want to buy some totally normal product. I'm so sick of bringing home something totally basic, like cream cheese or soy sauce, and discovering that it's New!Light!Formula or Fancy!Sodium!Free. But I accept that people watch their diets. I read the labels. I am careful.

I do not accept that some people 'need'??? scented toilet paper. Good grief, folks--if your bathroom stinks that badly, then  spray some febreeze or use a dedicated product that I already know not to buy. Don't make your gross habits creep into my gluteal cleft when I'm not looking.

[fishbrains]

I now fully dedicate myself to appropriately employing the phrase "creep into my gluteal cleft" at least three times this week.

[Harlow2]

I now fully dedicate myself to appropriately employing the phrase "creep into my gluteal cleft" at least three times this week.

Please reply back with examples!

[kaysixteen]

Wherever did  you possibly enounter scented rumpswabs?

[EdnaMode]

Dear Office Manager,

You can't do things like move the location of paper for our printers, change the protocol for sending off-campus mail, lock all the meeting room doors so we have to ask you to open them for us, etc., etc., etc., NOT tell anyone that things have changed, then get annoyed when we don't follow your rules and/or have to ask seemingly inane questions. It wouldn't be that hard to send out an email, put a memo in our mailboxes, or otherwise let us know. We're professors, we know how to follow rules, but only if we know what those rules are.

No love,

Dr. M.