The Venting Thread

[apl68]

I've vented before about a lack of ventilation, due to the HVAC system failing at work.  It has done so again.  I was out of town visiting family until yesterday evening.  Turns out the system failed Sunday during an event in the library's Community Room.  So we have patrons unhappy because the failure of the library's system ruined their event. 

I've put in a call for service, but it will be hours before they get anybody here, since nobody this side of Little Rock can work on the stupid thing.  This is my 20th summer working here.  We have not had a single summer in which the HVAC system did not give trouble multiple times.  Until we get this fixed, we will be sitting in a building in temperatures and humidity both pushing 90 today.  Heat index values may well be close to 100.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

So flippin' annoyed! My student employees are giving me crap and HR is taking its sweet ass time figuring out its ass from a hole in the ground. FML.

[apl68]

The burglar alarm gremlins paid one of their visits to the library around 2:30 a.m.  Very nearly all of these false alarms occur between 2-4 a.m.  So I have to get dressed, put in my contact lenses, and make the short drive to the library to talk with the police, who have invariably found the premises secure.  Then go home and try to finish getting a night's sleep.  This has happened multiple times a year since I began working here almost two decades ago.

[Puget]

I'm sure everyone would be shocked to hear that the migration from Moodle 2 to Moodle 4 has not been the smooth and effortless process we were promised. Many hours later, over multiple days, I've finally gotten everything exported from the old and imported into the new course shell, with many mysterious  error codes along the way. But, all the embedded videos are no longer embedded, just showing links, because apparently the embed HTML code refers to something in Moodle 2. So likely I have to now-do all video embedding, which for a flipped course is not trivial!

[AmLitHist]

F-ing HR strikes again.  One of my summer classes ends today, and the OL pay for it gets split between the end of June (2/3) and today (1/3).  Yesterday I found out that the 1/3 I was due today isn't scheduled to get paid until the end of July. Our secretary screwed up, and even after both my chair and me trying to explain it to her for 20 minutes, she still doesn't see how/why what she did is wrong. (She both entered it wrong initially, then missed the error on the payroll approval sheets. She's a nice woman, but far from the sharpest tool in the shed.) HR also ignored the flag clearly showing the error--"that person is new and didn't know what to do so she thought it was correct" was HR's story.

More to the point, HR said they can't do anything except pay it at the end of July. Since this is the THIRD summer in a row my summer pay has been screwed up--either by my office or by HR or both--this is NOT acceptable. I got my union president involved; he lives to butt heads with Admin, and is particularly fed up with the revolving door of idiots in HR. He assured me that I will be paid "sooner than next Friday," which is vague, but I appreciate him going to bat for me. I'm not desperate for the cash today (though of course I was expecting it), but it's more the idea and aggravation of it all. 

Let me or another faculty member miss a deadline, make a minor mistake, or such, and we'll have hell's fury raining on us, but HR and admin?  "No big deal," they tell us. Yes, it IS.  You don't screw with people's money.

Also, they did the same thing to a number of summer adjuncts, and I know they DO need the money. (I remember all too well holding my breath until summer pay hit my account for a lot of years.)

"Best Place to Work" in the metro:  that's us!

[mythbuster]

AmLiHist I feel your pain. Use that union rep for the good of all.
  I am currently in the middle of some sort of tiff between our office staff and the Grants management folks. All over who will process the paperwork to get me reimbursed for my food and Uber purchases from the conference I was at last week. I don't care who- just get it done! I'm sure the snide emails between both sides takes much longer than the actual time to input the damn receipts.

[apl68]

We take getting our staff paid on time very, very seriously here.  Failing to pay those who've done work for you in good faith is not excusable.  It's even very specifically condemned in Scripture.

I just found out today that a major newspaper subscription that has been paused for months at the library has apparently been lost completely by the vendor.  We were told months ago that we had gotten that sorted out, after a good deal of emailing back and forth.  We've paid for the stupid thing!  And now you're telling us that your records say we don't have a subscription to it? 

[Langue_doc]

@AmLitHist, contact your elected representatives, at the city, state, and federal levels. If your institution is receiving funds from the state, your reps, if they have any balls regardless of gender, should be holding the institution accountable for withholding paychecks.

[clean]

Classes became available Monday at 12:01am.  Last night at 7 was the first deadline. I emailed those that had missed the deadlines and gave them suggestions to use the bonus points (submitting the remaining assignments 48 hours before the deadline) to recoup the points lost. 
One student emails this morning that she will have to drop because she can not meet the 7 pm deadline, but that if the deadlines were at midnight she could... and that she worked a job, had a hubby and child and was taking other classes. 
I replied that if she needed to drop because of her class and life commitments that was fine, but it could not be the 7 pm deadline.  If she can only work on assignments from 7 pm to midnight, she could submit here work the day before the deadline.  Clearly the only hours available are NOT the 5 hours from 7 to midnight on the due date!

maybe I am mistaken!  maybe those are the only days and times that heaven and earth overlap for her to accomplish the entirety of her attention to this class.

[apl68]

Monday the technicians arrived in the afternoon--they have hours to drive to get here--and got the air running again before closing time.

The next day, we had technicians from the same company there for a scheduled service inspection.  Why couldn't we have had them scheduled for the day before?

Yesterday they were here to replace a chilled water pump that we had on order for the HVAC system.  They didn't have materials needed to do the job, so they decided to come back today.

Today they were getting the new pump installed when a chilled water valve suddenly broke.  Now we have no air in the building again.  I've authorized them to have technicians here tomorrow morning at eight, working on overtime.  This week is going to end up being crushingly expensive for us.  As in our whole annual budget for maintenance shot in a single week expensive.

[AmLitHist]

The long-awaited foot surgery, scheduled for 7/29, is . . .

. . . postponed indefinitely, until I can get my blood sugar/A1C back into a decent range. This isn't unexpected*, but I'm still veering between acceptance and anger.

It's already been 16 months since I broke my foot. What's a few more weeks/months, at this point?  SIGH.

I guess the bright side is, I have lots of nice cool summer dresses I can wear to work in August and September (with my stylish ortho boot, of course). There's no way I'd try wearing them while on a knee scooter post-op; my luck, I'd get a hem caught and throw myself off that and break something else. (At least I can still joke, right?)

And FWIW: type 2 diabetes sucks.

----
*After the 5+ weeks of pure hell that was early summer with Kid #1, their TBI/bipolar, and the resultant stress-related trashing of my blood sugar readings, I figured this was coming. Although I'd expected my April 7.1 A1C to have risen, though, I'd hoped all the salads, hungry evenings, and otherwise behaving myself would have done something to avoid it shooting up to 8.0 as it did. (All else being equal, my surgeon sets 8.0 as the top limit, but since I heal slower than molasses in January anyway, and since I end up in wound care if somebody just looks at me too long, he agreed with my suggestion that there's no point in doing the bone graft and repair and then passing the summer/fall with no healing and/or with complications.)

[Parasaurolophus]

Gah, I'm so sorry, AmLitHist.


For my part, we're being evicted after six years. We've been given four months' notice. There's no explanation, apart from the landlords saying they want to re-take possession for their family. It's completely unexpected, and they don't seem the type to be counting down the months til they can put it back on the market and charge double, so we're theorizing they may be separating. But there've been no indications of that, either (they live above us).

We're heartbroken. And the hatchling, who gets very homesick, will take it hard. So will the cats.

I'm also not looking forward to trying to find a place on short notice in a market with almost no vacancies, and all of them 2-3 times more expensive than our current rent. And just during the grading crunch time, too. Ugh.

[poiuy]

Hey @AmLitHist and @Para,

So sorry for these unexpected unpleasantries.  As someone who has my own share of difficulties (adult child with autism doing all kinds of infernal things despite all the supports; our state has a decades-long waitlist for disability services, etc.; other child stuck in life and also looking for affordable, safe, adequate housing on a pitiful salary), I empathize.

I you both and all else who need it, some good fortune in the coming months.

[apl68]

Sorry you all are facing such significant medical/residential issues.  Praying that you will soon find good solutions.

[Sea_Ice]

Gah, I'm so sorry, AmLitHist.


For my part, we're being evicted after six years. We've been given four months' notice. There's no explanation, apart from the landlords saying they want to re-take possession for their family. It's completely unexpected, and they don't seem the type to be counting down the months til they can put it back on the market and charge double, so we're theorizing they may be separating. But there've been no indications of that, either (they live above us).

We're heartbroken. And the hatchling, who gets very homesick, will take it hard. So will the cats.

I'm also not looking forward to trying to find a place on short notice in a market with almost no vacancies, and all of them 2-3 times more expensive than our current rent. And just during the grading crunch time, too. Ugh.

Ouch!  So sorry to hear & I hope it works out for the best - at least it's 4 months warning, not merely ONE!