the "things you wish you could say" thread

[polly_mer]

It is very early in the morning and yet my email already prompts:

* I am surprised to see the big announcement sent without my name or even a notice to me that it was going out.  Perhaps I'm unclear on what co-organizer means, but you just told 1000 people that you are organizing this whole event.  Since I was purposely asked to co-organize as the representative of 500 of those people, I wonder what you were thinking in sending out the announcement with just your name on it, especially since it will now be harder to beat the bushes to get participants since it's clear my folks are second (third?) class add-ons with zero language including them.

* The computer systems are again unavailable for indeterminate time.  Even Super Dinky managed to keep the computers up longer than this and you folks actually have a team of trained folks with resources.

* How interesting that you writing to me personally to beg me to take on undergraduate students for the summer term.  Yes, you're in the tough spot of having been told by upper management to build a summer student program and succeeded in having many more applicants than the program was even designed to support while not having even enough scientists to mentor the designed number of students. 

However, upper management doesn't actually reward us scientists for having the short-term undergrad students. Since you reported me for not doing enough work on your technical project a couple years ago because I was doing the desired service activities I was encouraged to do, I'd think you would know why the smart thing for me to do is turn down all offers that don't contribute directly to the technical work that gets me good ratings in the performance system that leads to a bigger raise and a promotion.  Come back when you are trying to place undergrads for two years (i.e., long enough to be helpful with the research) or are placing postdocs.

[FishProf]

Dear Provost

We all suspected you were incompetent.  Now we know.

That thing you ordered us to do?  That violates the contract. So NO!

That other thing you want us to do?  Is stupid and violates the contract.  So NO

No love.  Hell, no like.

Fishprof

(I can't say this.  But I can, and have, filed a grievance - yay Union?)

[mamselle]

No, clueless upper-level administrator, the reason that our department requires an administrative assistant is not because the faculty don't want to make their copies.  I just can't even . . .

Those of us who have worked as academic admin. assistants recognize the problem and thank you for your advocacy.

My job tasks included high-level grant accountancy, Excel pivot tables and X-Y-Z charts, fast (75 wpm+) typing, with basic editing on the fly; copy editing for upper-level Uni presses' publications and NSF grant submission rationales (usually given to us at the last minute; we'd team-read each others' bosses work so our editorial "eyes" stayed fresh); travel booking, expense accounting (with 33-number entry codes at one point); catering, conference planning, liason with various international professional organizations, and if your boss was president that year, all the support that entailed as well.

Oh, and student packets, updating course websites, submitting grades, and (once) going in at midnight to fax all our MOUs to a governmental agency halfway around the world that'd had a coup and wanted to throw all our researchers out and install their own, headed by the nephew of the new dictator and his school cronies instead.

Fun times.

When some folks still called us secretaries, I had a mug that read,

  "Be kind to your assistants. Secretaries secretly run the world."

Hope your exec gets woke ....

M.

[Langue_doc]

(unrelated)

To patron in the grocery store--cover your effing nose; this isn't the time or place to burst into a tuneless song.

[FishProf]

Please stop replying to class announcements as if they were emails only directed at you.

[OneMoreYear]

No, clueless upper-level administrator, the reason that our department requires an administrative assistant is not because the faculty don't want to make their copies.  I just can't even . . .

Those of us who have worked as academic admin. assistants recognize the problem and thank you for your advocacy.

My job tasks included high-level grant accountancy, Excel pivot tables and X-Y-Z charts, fast (75 wpm+) typing, with basic editing on the fly; copy editing for upper-level Uni presses' publications and NSF grant submission rationales (usually given to us at the last minute; we'd team-read each others' bosses work so our editorial "eyes" stayed fresh); travel booking, expense accounting (with 33-number entry codes at one point); catering, conference planning, liason with various international professional organizations, and if your boss was president that year, all the support that entailed as well.

Oh, and student packets, updating course websites, submitting grades, and (once) going in at midnight to fax all our MOUs to a governmental agency halfway around the world that'd had a coup and wanted to throw all our researchers out and install their own, headed by the nephew of the new dictator and his school cronies instead.

Fun times.

When some folks still called us secretaries, I had a mug that read,

  "Be kind to your assistants. Secretaries secretly run the world."

Hope your exec gets woke ....

M.

We lost multiple administrative assistants / support staff in the latest budget purge. We are a field that requires accreditation and licensing.  Our current support staff (like most of us) are overworked and underpaid.  To make that statement shows a complete lack of understanding of, well, anything.  I can't even described the shit-show that occurred in the nursing department as they got gutted worse than we did.  I have no confidence that this exec will ever get close to being woke.

[mahagonny]

So you wrote a whole article to complain that Trump tried to appeal to the female vote by saying 'I'm putting your husbands back to work' and how sexist that is, and how no women will vote for him now. He just put a woman on the Supreme Court. He knows women work full time. 839 words to say one silly thing. This is how much feminists don't get America.

Starting with.....hmm....Anne Dudley Hutchinson? Philis Wheatly?

Mercy Warren Oliver? Deborah Sampson? ...Abigail Smith Adams?

Their voices and actions contributed as much to the strength and survival of this land as those of their male contemporaries.

Maybe your concept of nation is too small....

M.

Oh you left out a lot. The outstanding women I could name in my field whose work informs my own. Not that I would presume to be on their level of accomplishment.
But these women you name waged a battle that has been won. Who could not appreciate them? Today's woman can do a anything a man can do and maybe more. When I think of feminists today, i think of that author, eager to be offended and expound on it, imagining somehow the women who preferred Trump before will change their mind as a result of that inconsequential comment; those who are looking to bust you for 'mansplaining,' Hillary Clinton who has 'gone farther than anyone else.' (Except, no, she hasn't. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister 40 years ago.) Too much melodrama and too little letting one's work speak for itself. A stale grievance.

[fishbrains]

No, clueless upper-level administrator, the reason that our department requires an administrative assistant is not because the faculty don't want to make their copies.  I just can't even . . .

Oh, Lordy. What an idiot. The various assistants at my cc have bailed me out from my own stupidness far more times than any deans have (and I have some great deans need to bail me out).

I remember back a few years ago when an adjunct mouthed off to one division assistant about paperwork that the adjunct hadn't submitted on time. She simply let the adjunct go to the dean to complete the adjunct's paperwork for the rest of the semester--the adjunct's last semester. The adjunct's wait-times to gain access to that dean is still the stuff of legends.

[Vkw10]

No, clueless upper-level administrator, the reason that our department requires an administrative assistant is not because the faculty don't want to make their copies.  I just can't even . . .

If clueless upper-level administrator's administrative assistant hears that, he may be trying to cope by himself soon. Assistants cooperate with each other to get their work done. Making your assistant's job harder by eliminating the assistants s/he interfaces with in departments is the kind of stupid behavior that makes them decide to leave.

[polly_mer]

No, clueless upper-level administrator, the reason that our department requires an administrative assistant is not because the faculty don't want to make their copies.  I just can't even . . .

If clueless upper-level administrator's administrative assistant hears that, he may be trying to cope by himself soon. Assistants cooperate with each other to get their work done. Making your assistant's job harder by eliminating the assistants s/he interfaces with in departments is the kind of stupid behavior that makes them decide to leave.

Super Dinky got to the point of being so shorthanded on assistants that the registrar and provost were babysitting the copiers leading up to registration.  I spent an afternoon stapling all the first-year orientation packets one fall because I was the person who could be spared that day in terms of meeting the looming, could-not-be-moved deadlines.

At my current employer, we're having senior scientists leave in part because they can't get administrative assistance at the level needed for their work doing the tasks that mamselle listed.  The lack of being able to recruit new assistants is a significant problem.  Time was, we'd recruit a scientist and get a trailing spouse or other family member who would be support staff.  Now, many scientists have two-body problems being married to other scientists and recruiting support staff is hard because no one is moving cross-country for just an entry-level support position.

[fishbrains]

I don't think you understand that if some students were given a due date of, say, infinity, quite a few of them would be asking for an extension of infinity plus two days.

[FishProf]

Dear Provost
You have asked us to all "pull together for the good of our students".  But you then proceeded to nickel and dime us on everything we asked for.  So, we're done pitching in.  We'll do exactly what you ordered us to do.  But the result will be worse than the plan we proposed.  And it will be your fault.
No Love
Fishprof

[marshwiggle]

I don't think you understand that if some students were given a due date of, say, infinity, quite a few of them would be asking for an extension of infinity plus two days.

... before you have finished telling them what the assignment is.

[hmaria1609]

To patron: Ma'am, whoever told you we would be closed tomorrow made it up!

[nonsensical]

Dear schools that have me submit letters of recommendation online,

If you are going to ask me to compare the applicant to others, please arrange the categories in numerical order. "They are the best thing since sliced bread" should be at the very top of the list. If you want to go in reverse order, I will accept the very bottom of the list. When you put it in the middle of the list because that is where it goes alphabetically, it is easy to mistake the top category ("above average") for the best rating possible, especially when one is submitting a bunch of letters in a row. I really like this student and want them to get in everywhere. Good thing I caught this, but please don't make it difficult for me to communicate how very well-suited this person is for graduate study!

Thank you oh so much,
nonsensical