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Journal sielwolf's Journal: Taking Shit 10

Journal by sielwolf

I came home from TAing a lab today to find a jolly old email from my advisor. "Dear sielwolf. I see that you have not show your students our instant messaging service. I expect you to follow the instructions and show it to them by the end of the class. I am looking right now and I am the only one on."

Now this may seem a bit innocuous (well outside of the paternal fingerwaving tone) except for a few things. First is: I was currently TAing a class when he sent this. I have no time to do anything (like... check my email) as I'm bouncing from person to person answering their questions. I'm consulting, I'm teaching, I'm helping debug. But beyond logistics, if I remember correctly the instant messaging stuff just came up this morning. The lead TA then said to show them the IM stuff next week. I checked my watch, next week doesn't start for a few days. Finally he sent this from what I persume was his office hours. Well his office is upstairs. If he had the time to send me an email, he had time to come down and tell me.

Ok, maybe he was trying to be subtle. But if your message doesn't get through, don't blame me. And this is the theme of my TA: miscommunication. A lot of talk, talk talk without any specific simple instructions. My suggestion? "Teach the students how to use our IM starting Feb 3 labs." Nebulous statements ("next week") or long winded explainations do nothing but confuse the problem.

As you can see I have small tolerance for this. Hell, I think communication (along with adequate delegation of authority) sums up good management. This is not what we're getting. And I think he senses my displeasure. I now think my demotement to a normal TA had something to do with this. Or at least it was related:

Prof: "Sielwolf, write up the exam."
Me: "Ok what should it be on?"
Prof: "The chapters they read."
Me: "Ok so what should the questions be like?"
Prof: "*sigh* on the assigned READING."
Me: "Um, actually I'm looking for a ballpark difficulty. And what sort of problems? Should I give them a starting point? Or should I just give them a blank sheet of paper?-"

What I assume he was thinking: "Jesus... do I have to explain EVERYTHING to this guy?"

Well I'm sorry but your guidelines are obscure, obfuscated, and erratic. I can't read your mind. And if I'm asking questions, you should assume that I don't GET what you are saying. We didn't get to the Moon by the President saying "Let's go to the Moon!" and the next day the Saturn V was sitting there.

Also I'm getting tired of the lack of respect. I mean, I'm a fucking adult. I may be technically a "student" but I have a salary and health care and I'm in all ways an employee. And so what do I get? Emails sent to me that seem to have an implicit "You moron!" appended to them.

And then when it turns out he's wrong (like if it turns out I was right and that I shouldn't have done the IM tutorial today) what does he do? "Oh, sorry..." Um, maybe I was raised differently but usually an apology needs to fall in the ballpark of the shit said originally. If you fucking curse my household, find out you were wrong, and only give me a "my mistake...", don't expect me to be gracious.

For our TA meetings he dogs everyone who is even a minute late. Wait. Scratch that. Everyone is who is a minute late after him. He comes in with a jovial "sorry to keep you waiting" but then bites the head off of anyone who fucking had to wait for a damn train.

But what the hell do I know? I'm a fucking child! Shit, why do I have any rights at all? I don't know jack shit! Hell they could replace me with a trained pile of plastic dog turds! Everytime I ask a question it's because I"m too much of a prick to not listen in the first place! Every mistake I made is a calculated attempt to piss everyone off! Fuck, why am I still writing? I should fucking cut my own throat right now I'm such a fucking disgrace!

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Taking Shit More

Taking Shit

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  • I'm for the most part an outsider. So, when I started taking courses for the first time this year, I noticed a few things.

    Professors seem to be scatter-brained. They also seem to not be very well prepared. They have a nice list of insults they can quickly spew at dumb comments or questions.

    Instructions are often not very descriptive.

    I have noticed my only recourse in dealing with them seems to be to approach them after class and ask them directly exactly what they want.

    Anyhow. Is there any way you can get away from this guy? Sounds like quite the pompous ass.
    • Well not really now, sadly. Problem is that the semester has already started and that the assignments for TA's come down from on high. So this means the Graduate Coordinator and the profs that need TAs. Since this is my fourth semester teaching this class my prof keeps bringing me back as an "experienced" TA. It'd be easier to do the opposite (to go from a class I don't have experience in to one that I do).

      Outside of that I'd need a real "reason". And you can guess how those are in universities. Now if my Academic advisor was teaching classes this semester (and he isn't), I could try to jump ship to him.

      Other than that, I just have 88 days 23.5 hours remaining.
    • Your description of academia fits my former night school teacher a "T". His examples weren't clear, so that people were left scratching their heads. When questions came up, he was condescending.

      I honestly think that he needed to humble himself & recognize that his way of doing things was culturally different, which made it hard for others to follow. But no. He couldn't think of it that way. That would be too easy.
    • Yeah I guess so. But then I don't use his name, the name of the class, my name, or the name of our institution. I also don't think he's a /. type of guy so I think he'd have to either watch me up a JE or be told about it (and none of the other TA's seem like /. folk either... odd huh?).
  • May.

    (wooo whoo! I came in under my initial estimate! ;)

    There are ways of dealing with problems in the real world; be they straight forward communication, going to a superior, or outright deceit and cheating, however I don't think you will get any satisfaction. Which is truly unfortunate, because you seem pretty flexible as long as there is solid ground to work on.

    However you are on the constantly shift ground of meglomania and stupidity surrounded by a moat of mis-communication. Your only recourse is to have these slings and arrows roll off like water from a duck's back.

    You are fucked any way you turn,so your only option is to transcend or bliss out. SUCKS, eh?!
    (correct me if I'm wrong, but bliss-out doesn't seem your style...)

    P.S.- does this guy hit on the attractive females around him? He sure sounds like my wife's advisor/professor in law school.
  • Okay, yes, I want to ditch the NEA, but it's going to take some time. In the meanwhile, would you like to head it after I'm elected?
  • the best revenge is living well. soon you'll be going out into the real world, and this gentleman who is your prof will be left there where he is. is there really a more just punishment for him? i know he's holding back eager young minds, but aside from that it's a good deal. he may be a big fish in the small pond, but he wouldn't make it in a larger pond. for some reason, most people who make hiring decisions care about teamwork and communication skills.

    if i had tried harder, i could have used a few more cliche phrases.

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