The Venting Thread

[AvidReader]

My friend urged me to publish my work, since that's the only thing left to do--"so they'll HAVE to cite you!" as they put it.

Ugh--frustrating indeed! But happy publishing! And yes, of course, vent away!

AR.

[ab_grp]

Well, my husband just headed out to pick up covid tests from CVS.  Enough said, I guess.  It's 5:00 somewhere, as they say.

[Vkw10]

What do you mean, "You have the minimum three applications, do we still need to do paid advertising for the position?"

The position was posted on university website in late December. The search committee has diligently posted to free mailing lists and job boards, plus tweeted on appropriate channels. They've made personal contacts. And you want to save $350 advertising expense for a job that pays $90k minimum?

Our efforts to do free advertising via social media (which policy says should supplement standard advertising) has provoked comments about "blatant inside candidate searches" because we don't have any ads in standard places a month after the posting opened.

Spend the advertising money and get us some qualified candidates, if any are willing to apply at this point!

(Three years to retirement. Just. Three. Years.)

[apl68]

What do you mean, "You have the minimum three applications, do we still need to do paid advertising for the position?"

The position was posted on university website in late December. The search committee has diligently posted to free mailing lists and job boards, plus tweeted on appropriate channels. They've made personal contacts. And you want to save $350 advertising expense for a job that pays $90k minimum?

Our efforts to do free advertising via social media (which policy says should supplement standard advertising) has provoked comments about "blatant inside candidate searches" because we don't have any ads in standard places a month after the posting opened.

Spend the advertising money and get us some qualified candidates, if any are willing to apply at this point!

(Three years to retirement. Just. Three. Years.)

Institutions have to show that they've crossed all Ts and dotted all Is in matters like that.  I can't fill a full-time job at the library without putting a paid ad in the local paper.  Got kind of annoying for a few years there, when we had a revolving door of staff members.

[mamselle]

It sounds like you've got an HR person fresh from Wal-mart...

M.

[apl68]

Last night I was just about to pleasantly conclude the day by helping myself to some of that beef stew I'd had all day in the slow cooker when I got phone calls informing me that we had a fire alarm going off at work.  I rushed there and found the place swarming with police and firemen, and earsplitting alarms going off.  I let them in, and they checked around to make sure there was no fire while I tried to get the alarms silenced.  I couldn't.

I frantically called and got hold of a technician--who lives an hour and a half away.  He helped me diagnose the system and get the alarm put to sleep.  By now I could tell that the dry sprinkler system had pressurized.  We can't just leave it like that.  The sprinkler technician was already on his way.  He only lived half an hour away, so I had just enough time to thank the police and firemen for coming, run home and gulp down a meal I'd hoped to savor, and rush back out in the cold to meet the sprinkler tech.

He diagnosed the problem and conferred by phone with the alarm tech.  Then he conferred with me.  Did we want to leave the sprinklers pressurized so they'd be ready in the event of a fire--and take a chance on the pipes freezing and bursting--or drain the sprinklers and hope we didn't have a fire overnight?  Given that the building has gone 20 years with no fire, and that we were supposed to have rare overnight temperatures in the teens, I decided we need to be more afraid of ice than of fire.  So we stayed until the sprinkler tech had the system draining safely.

Today they're coming to try to get the system rigged so that it will be more or less functional by this evening.  Full repairs will have to await the arrival of parts.  I spent part of yesterday evening feeling in a very ugly mood over having the evening ruined.  Then I reminded myself to be thankful that there was no actual fire, the sprinklers did not discharge on our books and computers, and the whole thing did not happen at midnight or three in the morning.

[mamselle]

Yikes, just the thought of the potential for fire--and or ice-- in a library is scary stuff.

Glad it was able to be worked out, but I do know the regret of a much-anticipated meal having to be downed quickly,  too.

The things we have to do to 'adult.'

M.

[apl68]

When you have sophisticated systems in your building, like our alarm/sprinkler system or our HVAC system, that nobody who lives near your small town can fix, it can be a real mess sometimes.  The burglar alarms have called me out for false alarms in the middle of the night at least a couple of times a year for seventeen years now.  We have false fire alarms that pressurize the sprinkler system once every several years.  Its supposed to be a dry system, but some of the pipes weren't installed so that they'd drain properly after a false alarm.  Some years ago, on New Year's Day, I was called out early in the morning when pipes full of stagnant water from a previous alarm burst in our ceilings. 

Amazingly enough, no book stacks or computer systems were damaged.  But we had to have thousands of dollars' worth of repairs done to our ceilings in two places, and had to have the sprinkler lines redone so that they'd drain properly in the future.  A library in a neighboring county had to shut down for weeks due to pipes freezing and bursting on that same New Year.  So really, we were fortunate.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I don't know if this is really a vent- maybe a grump?

I've been struggling with early morning meetings (got into a bad habit of staying up until 2am). Eyes are goopy, I'm physically tired and grumpy- the weather doesn't help and the heating dries out the air in the house. Maybe this is a 1st world problem?

The semester is flying past me 10 times the speed of light and I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up.

[Parasaurolophus]

The useless university emailed me at 23h00 last night to say I had to send them confirmation of my parental leave application by 10h00 this morning or I wouldn't be paid until February. I sent this information over a month ago, but either they ignored it or it's the wrong page.

The useless POFS government two-factor authentication app has decided it needs to reset, which could take a few hours while someone verifies my identity. That means I can't check to see if there's some other page of which I have to take a screenshot. UUUUURGH.

[Parasaurolophus]

Ah, I see. There are two screenshots I have to send. Good job giving me that information. This whole process has been super transparent.

And all this hassle for crumbs, since they aren't paying me what my contract says they should.

[paultuttle]

Last night I was just about to pleasantly conclude the day by helping myself to some of that beef stew I'd had all day in the slow cooker when I got phone calls informing me that we had a fire alarm going off at work.  I rushed there and found the place swarming with police and firemen, and earsplitting alarms going off.  I let them in, and they checked around to make sure there was no fire while I tried to get the alarms silenced.  I couldn't.

I frantically called and got hold of a technician--who lives an hour and a half away.  He helped me diagnose the system and get the alarm put to sleep.  By now I could tell that the dry sprinkler system had pressurized.  We can't just leave it like that.  The sprinkler technician was already on his way.  He only lived half an hour away, so I had just enough time to thank the police and firemen for coming, run home and gulp down a meal I'd hoped to savor, and rush back out in the cold to meet the sprinkler tech.

He diagnosed the problem and conferred by phone with the alarm tech.  Then he conferred with me.  Did we want to leave the sprinklers pressurized so they'd be ready in the event of a fire--and take a chance on the pipes freezing and bursting--or drain the sprinklers and hope we didn't have a fire overnight?  Given that the building has gone 20 years with no fire, and that we were supposed to have rare overnight temperatures in the teens, I decided we need to be more afraid of ice than of fire.  So we stayed until the sprinkler tech had the system draining safely.

Today they're coming to try to get the system rigged so that it will be more or less functional by this evening.  Full repairs will have to await the arrival of parts.  I spent part of yesterday evening feeling in a very ugly mood over having the evening ruined.  Then I reminded myself to be thankful that there was no actual fire, the sprinklers did not discharge on our books and computers, and the whole thing did not happen at midnight or three in the morning.

:warning - interthreaduality: This and the newest apl68 post on the coronavirus thread are further evidence that librarians are true superheroes.

(meant sincerely, not at all sarcastically)

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Unrelated.

HR majorly fucked up and now I'm losing a student employee. Nobody is being held accountable for it (even though I have a paper trail from them showing their mistake) and the student is the one who lost out.

[Parasaurolophus]

Also, I caught a runny nose from the hatchling and it's been days and I'm tired of blowing it, and of the post-nasal drip.

Could be omicron, but there's no way of knowing given test shortages and the difficulty of going into town in the first place. But we see nobody, ever, so.

[mamselle]

I don't know if this is really a vent- maybe a grump?

I've been struggling with early morning meetings (got into a bad habit of staying up until 2am). Eyes are goopy, I'm physically tired and grumpy- the weather doesn't help and the heating dries out the air in the house. Maybe this is a 1st world problem?

The semester is flying past me 10 times the speed of light and I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up.

I've had to work on the 'balance your rewards with your responsibilities thing in a time-frame sort of way like that....

One of my 'rewards' is watching old British films or BBC TV series online after I'm done teaching at the end of the day.

But one thing leads to another, and...oops, it's indeed 1, or 2, or (a couple times) 3, or 4, (and once or twice) 5 AM.

Since most of my students are in the afternoons and evenings, it doesn't directly affect my teaching (she tells herself) but I am working on a few research tasks, doing prep for their lessons and classes, and meeting with a couple of friends and doing a couple of other meetings in the AMs.

In addition, that's the time when I a) plan the day; b) run errands; c) do shopping chores; d) finish up stuff not finished the night before.

So I can't really burn the candle at both ends very often.

Mostly, I can stop myself with a reminder of what's up for the next day and HOW SOON that will be arriving.

And I'm 'allowed' to go overtime on Fridays and Saturdays if I wish (but that sometimes re-sets the clock, making it hard to get to sleep the next night.

...so, sometimes....yeah. I hear you.

I hope your sleep gets sorted out.

M.