the "things you wish you could say" thread

[ergative]

The general consensus of our little subcommittee was that our initiative was couched in too much jargon. You replied with, "Yes, we may have to recalibrate those deliverables." Everyone laughed lightly because we thought you were being witty.

When we looked at your face that was all a-flummoxed, we realized you were serious. So we laughed aloud. Then you got all pouty.

My best advice: Go home and start drinking until you see the humor in the situation. 'Cause I don't care who you are, that was funny.

I was once at a Science! For Kids! type event, describing my research. At one point I was making spectrograms of them saying their names, and was explaining what it was. And I opened my mouth and heard myself say, 'It's a visual representation of the sound waves . . .' and I just knew as I was saying it that I was failing badly, but I had no idea how to fix it. Fortunately my co-presenter popped up and said, 'It's a picture of your voice!' She is much better at that sort of thing than I am.

I deeply sympathize with your jargonizer.  But yes that was funny.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Dear Registrar:

Why, oh why, do you allow students without the appropriate Math prerequisites to sign up for my Physics courses? It's becoming a pain in the a$$ trying to constantly explain what an integral is to a student who never had Calculus.

[ergative]

Do you make a special time to meet up and re-teach the same material to every student who emails you to ask what they missed when they were absent? No, I didn't think so. Likewise, I cannot make time to reteach the information in this meeting to you just because you happen to have a schedule conflict. You've known about these regularly scheduled meetings since the beginning of the semester. If you have a schedule conflict, that's not my problem. Take the notes, talk to a colleague, and don't expect me to wipe your nose for you.

[onehappyunicorn]

When I tell you, oh dear student, that I do not penalize students who miss class due to severe weather situations I don't appreciate you trying to take advantage of that. I was talking about a situation where we had tornado warnings, not just rain. Telling me in your email that you do not feel safe driving in because we might have a few periods of somewhat heavy rain does you no favors, especially when it is sunny most of the day. Unfortunately saying "suck it up, buttercup" would likely be frowned up by my superior...

[Antiphon1]

Shame on you.  You've blown past hypocrite, bigot, and misogynist.  I hope your crappy behavior earns you the response you deserve.

[RatGuy]

When I tell you, oh dear student, that I do not penalize students who miss class due to severe weather situations I don't appreciate you trying to take advantage of that. I was talking about a situation where we had tornado warnings, not just rain. Telling me in your email that you do not feel safe driving in because we might have a few periods of somewhat heavy rain does you no favors, especially when it is sunny most of the day. Unfortunately saying "suck it up, buttercup" would likely be frowned up by my superior...

When its raining heavily, most of my students will take an Uber.

From their dorms.

[archaeo42]

To person 1: I don't know anyone that wants to do that.

To person 2: I'm not a mind reader. Be clear in the questions you ask and don't assume I know what year you're talking about. If you don't specify, I'll assume you mean the most recent one.

[magnemite]

Just. Go. Away.

[nescafe]

Man, you Facebook reply guys always predictably repeat whatever the non-male commenter just posted, don't you?

I'd ask "hey is there an echo in here?" but if there's one thing that's more boring than a reply-guy echo, it's the injured not-all-men defensiveness that follows it.

[marshwiggle]

Man, you Facebook reply guys always predictably repeat whatever the non-male commenter just posted, don't you?

I'd ask "hey is there an echo in here?" but if there's one thing that's more boring than a reply-guy echo, it's the injured not-all-men defensiveness that follows it.

In this day and age, nuance is evil.

[fishbrains]

If you really want to change things for the better for students--and I do have my doubts there--then you are going to have to get busy changing policy. I'm not doing all this work, so you can just shrug your shoulders later and give me the sea cow look.

[the_geneticist]

I really, really, really, don't want you on this committee.

[mamselle]

Grr! We've been asking for website input for years. No one has responded.

Now, with a transition coming up, it's the focus of everyone's "new ideas," "dreams" and "Hopes!" and you can't even say "thanks" when we show you what we did do to update it in accordance with the new project we're working on....you just start in on this issue and that one, and you want stupid big pictures and print instead of an indexed, well-structured site.

My take on it is fast becoming: "When things are in flux, people take it out on the website."

And as a corollary: I'm only going to do minimal changes and cleanup, because it's clear you're going to trash the whole thing anyway.

Grumble....

M.

[nescafe]

Twitter folk (or social media in general): it is 100 percent possible to amplify/"signal boost" someone's message without outwardly saying that is what you're doing. I checked, and I promise it is possible. RT/Share.

The addition of an extra comment that you are "signal boosting" them is annoying. And it's so baldly performative and self-centered that I kind of judge you for doing it.

[hmaria1609]

To patron #1: How stupid can you possibly be? No other patrons are here right now, the public computers show as unavailable, and all the lights are off. And our hours posted in large font on the front door.

To patron #2: Oh, I heard you. But I'm not your personal servant.