the "things you wish you could say" thread

[FishProf]

Dammit!  I am fighting the Provost on your behalf.  Going behind my back to cut a side-deal has totally undermined my position.  Now we are both f'd.  Thanks

[sinenomine]

Dear colleague, get your news from the news outlets, not social media — please!

[hmaria1609]

To library patron: You're a young guy with plenty of time of time to hang about and do nothing. Why is that? And no, I don't keep an account on any social media platform.

[FishProf]

Ok, I'm done.  I don't need this crap.  You can find yourself another patsy chair,

[Harlow2]

Why should I have to apply again for something I already applied for and was granted? 

[polly_mer]

Ok, I'm done.  I don't need this crap.  You can find yourself another patsy chair,

It does feel pretty good the day you can say this to the relevant person.


In my own events,


Dear HR person,

Effective communication is something I dearly hope your big boss insists goes on your current performance assessment because this morning's still-unfolding disaster has lost your department a lot of good will that you will need.

How have you failed this morning?  Let me count the ways.

1) You created a new email list of 2000 randomly selected employees and instead of starting with something like, "Salutations!  You have been selected to participate in a survey for HR regarding <new initiative>.  Details will follow with a message from the HR leader", you sent us all an email that just read "test".  No indication of who you are, why we are on the email list, or even what you are testing.

2) You sent the test email with all 2000 of us unsuspecting people in the To box so that all those unsuspecting people could reply all with varying levels of good natured helpfulness, expected annoyance, and jokey memes on how these reply-all train wrecks go.

3) Your apology email went to a non-existent list on the first go so you forwarded that email with a misspelled and incomplete subject line indicating you are still not really on the ball.  We now know you who are from the signature block, but that's not to your favor.

4) When the HR leader sent us the email that really should have been either the first or second email (still not on BCC and still on To so everyone can reply all), the action link is broken.  Even if it weren't broken, that wasn't a feedback link; that was a link to the internal news site for an announcement of a survey step in a process.  A heads up notice regarding an upcoming survey coming out at least three days after the actual survey (based on internal news site frequency) is not good for communications.

5) Due to the lack of BCC, despite that being a common helpful tip by the respondents, we are treated to many observations that the link to the survey is broken along with even more suggestions on the value of BCC for the first email in a new chain.

6) The email stating that the link is indeed broken and requesting patience for another email with an updated link was still not BCC'ed to the list.  What was not on the very first line of that email?  That's right, the notice that people should not reply all to the email, but instead should call one of two phone numbers.  That notice was buried far enough in the message that I had to scroll on my big screen to see it.  The predictable irritated reply-all responses continue.

7) The email with the complete announcement with the actual survey live link still was not BCC'ed to the list, despite now being a useful subject line.  The irritated responses have slowed down, but I expect a new wave after lunch as all the people who were working on site in the morning come home in the afternoon and check their email starting from the beginning.

8) The survey itself focused on things where one must be an HR expert to have an opinion and almost entirely neglected the things that matter to normal employees on even a monthly basis.  By not even having an open-response box titled something like "What else do you want to tell us?" or "Additional Comments", you have proven you haven't really thought about what we, the human resources you are organizing, need. 

In all honesty, I would rather have flat out rude benefits administrators who are only available to talk for 2 hours every day with email taking a business week for a response, but excellent workforce development folks who administer formal, but voluntary, helpful programs/workshops/exercises than the best, friendliest, helpful insurance folks for things I spend about ten minutes thinking about every year in November.  I have never called a benefits administrator after my first six months here when I was settled in.  However, I have been filling the gaps in the workforce development area myself by organizing programs/workshops/exercises for my department and I'm not even the manager, just someone who sees a need.

I was willing to give a newbie a break because the first time one does something like this for so many people is daunting and error prone.  However, your employee number indicates you have to have been here for a good 20 years and therefore this isn't your first rodeo.

Not at all satisfied,

Polly

[FishProf]

Dear Colleague,

You want X schedule.  I gave it do you. 

Then you pitched a fit and demanded B.  So I gave that to you. 

Then you demanded I meet with Staff members X&Y to solve your issues.  So I set a meeting.

Then you had an impromptu meeting and now you demand schedule C.  Fine, I don't care.

What's really wrong?  This is either transference about your personal life, or you are mentally unwell.

Either way, when I am no longer Chair, we won't be friends.

No love,

Fishprof

[Vkw10]

Turn around, walk through the doorway, close the door, and read the sign. Or if you can't read, look at the picture. Either way, get out.

[mamselle]

^ Unrelated.

No, I won't help you compile any more resources, or edit the book that's been hanging fire for almost 10 years now.

I set up a writing schedule as asked three years ago; you ignored it. Two years ago, I did all the text/reference checks needed to line up the citations in order once you had the main text done. Last year, I did tables of all the stuff you asked for. You did indeed pay me for most of it, yes, you did.

But at the end of last year, when you gave me the first chapter to edit, I found that most of it was word-for-word copied from another author's book, with just one footnote at the beginning for one quote, but nothing for the rest (well, it would have needed a footnote for every other sentence, really.)

If you neither respect your own work, nor another's, to try to pull a stunt like that, I don't want anything further to do with the project.

And, now, I've got my own book a-brewing. So, I'm sorry, but--one of the other editors I've referred you to will do a good job for you--as long as you don't pull the same shenanigans on them.

La commedia e finita...

M.

[fishbrains]

Look, I like you and you are otherwise good at your job; but I will continue to challenge anyone who uses inane, disingenuous phrases like "Faculty need to work with students" and "Faculty need to try to help students make it through this semester" because, at least to me, these people are clearly saying that they want us to lower standards and pass more students by any means necessary--with plausible deniability on the part of the admins should anyone notice we are just passing students along.

Maybe that's what you meant. Maybe it's not (cough, cough). But I will keep challenging anyone who uses these phrases until the day they remove my cold, dead finger from the "Unmute" button. 

[mahagonny]

Yes, dear dean, thank you for asking what you might be able to do for us to help us along during this difficult time. You could tell that inconsiderate idiot of a chair to stop changing the course requirements for students that reduces our number of paid weekly hours without even telling us.

[the_geneticist]

No, we should not "schedule Spring quarter classes with the assumption we will be in person".  Have you seen the news?  What makes you think that we'll be allowed to pack 500+ students into a lecture hall in March?
Jeez.

[fishbrains]

Favorite admin: Saying a student is "dual enrollment" doesn't evoke that magical quality it used to. Instead, the term "dual enrollment" is going the way of the term "internet student."

Step into my way-back machine and let us remember together when we first started teaching internet courses in the early 2000s. We had a small cadre of dedicated, motivated instructors who worked together with a fairly small cadre of dedicated, motivated students. We had great pass rates and everyone was happy.

Then "they" eventually started putting anyone and everyone into internet courses based quite a bit on the students' scheduling concerns (as opposed to whether or not the student might actually succeed in the internet environment). In addition, with this expansion of students, faculty were soon assigned courses based more on their personal availability than whether-or-not they really wanted to teach internet courses. And here we are.

The same is happening with dual enrollment students. Any parent who now thinks their offspring was made super-special can put the kid in the dual enrollment program. With COVID, they don't even need the requisite ACT scores right now. Many of the students are still very good, but not enough of them to make the term "dual enrollment student" anything that special. And not all instructors are fond of teaching 16-17-year-olds who don't want to be there.

There: I at least wrote it down. 

[apl68]

That big event at the City Auditorium to commemorate our town's wonderful, long-lost little theater company sounds wonderful.  We're glad to help you find material for it in our library's local history collection.  But for crying out loud, please tell me you're not really planning to try to hold it sometime in January!

[mamselle]

That's when you offer resources on Zoom and PowerPoint for presentations and discussions....just since you know they'll need them, you know?

Sheesh!!!

M.