Administration and bureaucracy

You know, the idiot conjoined twin concepts that share a brain and think they know everything needed to run something. Yeah. Those can fuck off. With Cheez in a spray can.

First problem: one of my classes didn't "make." (Actually, if admin had permitted my department head to do what he wanted, they both would have.) Ten students per section is the minimum, and I had nine students in one section, eleven in the other. All they would have had to do was shift one student into the section with nine, and they told my department to shift the nine students into the other section and yank one.

Granted, I understand on one level: I'm paid by the section, and that would have saved the college the pay on the other. I'm sure nearly $2000 is a huge chunk of the budget on the level they're playing with.

On the other...well...that cuts my pay in half, and I didn't find out until the day classes started.

(At least it left me free to help my department head fix a clerical problem--one of my part-time colleagues was double-booked, so I took one of her 8:00 a.m. TTh classes, and shifted it online--er, Blackboard enhanced it. I'll be on campus two days a week, and they'll be in class. Really. We're not cheating the asshats in the admin of $150 extra in fees for 27 students. I promise.)

Second problem: I have access to one of my rosters. Today. Next week, because admin kept postponing my contract because of the "We don't know if both your sections will make" issue, I'll be deemed no longer working for the university, and won't have access to either my rosters or my pay information (though that last matters less--I won't get paid until the last day of September).

So yeah, admin and bureaucracy can fuck off with the plastic nozzles of their cans of Cheez crammed so far up their ass that the nozzle's are at eye level.

Have a good weekend.

Nearly nothin'

All I've got this week pissing me off is the continuing, nearly constant low-grade nausea. I'm in too good of a mood--the ultrasound was yesterday, and we found out we're having a girl!

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Bureaucracy

The way my job has their computer systems set up, I'm going to have a damn hard time doing everything they want me to do for the first two or so weeks.

I have to sign a new contract every semester. My contract is kind of up in the air right now, because no one is sure both my classes will make (which will be a fuck-off all of it's own, if one doesn't--they'll fold all of my students into one class, and drop the other, which halves my pitiful paycheck). Without that contract being in HR's hands, they'll kick me off of the system. Right on the first day of the semester. Which means that now, with the way they've got things set up, I won't be able to access my official roster to tell my students that they aren't officially enrolled, and they need to fix that (for at least another month while they get that fixed).

That can fuck right the fucking fuckety fuck off. So can the sleazebag that decided on the new system four years ago that we didn't have the hardware to pull off. We've got one more year before our hardware will be totally upgraded to properly run the software.

Another thing that can fuck right off is that I'm not going to be getting paid until the end of September. Yep, I'll be working for six weeks before I see my first paycheck. Which is likely to be half of what it was last semester. That implemented with the new computer system: "It's too hard to change the computer system to deposit your paycheck with everyone else's--even if we get your contract before the end of the previous semester."

Sounds to me like the bitch running human resources is just making a power play over the part-time faculty because she can't with the full-time faculty, or with the upper administration.

And she can fuck off with a rusty-razor-wire wrapped cracked glass dildo as big as her inflated ego.

The Clinton appointee in AZ can Fuck Off.

Arizona's law paralleled federal law. It forbade law enforcement officers from pulling people over just because they were Mexican--they had to be doing something else (like speeding, or doing a drug deal) before cops could ask them to prove they were there legally.

A judge in Arizona gutted the law the people asked for, the legislature passed, and the governor signed to sandbag the flood of criminals in their state.

They've had to close many of their parks because it's too dangerous for American citizens. And that stupid bitch won't let the state protect its citizens by making federal law applicable on the state level, because it interferes with federal (non) enforcement of immigration law.

Liberal Clinton-appointed bitch of a non-judgmental judge can fuck off with a double cracked glass dildo powered by a saber-saw, and lubed with rancid habanero nacho cheeze sauce.

A few bad choices on your part do not constitute an emergency on mine.

Students who do not one lick of work after the first week, but e-mail once or twice begging me to tell them what to do to not fail can fuck off. Especially when I answered the first time (turn in the papers, do the blogs, and don't fall behind again), and the second time was the last fucking week of class.

Some people aren't suited to college. And some aren't suited to taking online classes.

Specialists

I've noticed in both the academic field and the medical field that there is a bias against generalists. In the small university where I teach, most of the newer faculty in my department are not only specialists, but really narrow specialists that pat me on the head (figuratively--if they did it literally, they'd lose a hand), and tell me to run along because I can't be as smart as they are because I'm a generalist.

Umm...I'm not the one that limits my students' writing topics to my narrow interests because "nobody can understand every topic a student might write about." I may not understand the sports stuff, but I can Google it. As for all of the other possible topics, well, I've got a good, solid, basic understanding of everything else my students have ever written about.

Enough of that though: the real irritation I've got this week is with doctors. My prenatal caregiver is a nurse midwife. She's competent, and I like her quite a bit. But when my blood tests came back with my thyroid abnormally low--like .15 points lower than the bottom of the scale low--she didn't feel comfortable prescribing me anything for it, or sending me anywhere but to a specialist.

Said specialist said I was okay to wait until November.

Look. I'm one of the dream(or nightmare) patients that look up and research everything about their own health. I know that a low thyroid can cause problems for me while I'm pregnant (beyond just being so tired my hair hurts), AND WORSE ONES FOR MY UNBORN BABY. It is unacceptable to not fix that NOW.

So, I called my GP (who my midwife was uncomfortable sending me to, because she's a generalist) at 4:30 on Tuesday. And told her receptionist what was wrong, and that I felt awful. My generalist got me in the next morning, and gave me a prescription that I could feel clearing my foggy brain as early as an hour after I took my first dose.

I won't say specialists can fuck off, but I will say their attitude that generalists aren't as smart or as good for most purposes can.

Unprepared students

I've been teaching a composition class this summer. I usually don't teach during the summer, but I've come to a realization that there's a sharp dichotomy between the types of students that have signed up for my class: some are really good, and some are really not.

When I say really not, I mean they're so computer illiterate that they don't know how to double-space their papers in Microsoft Word. They create a new blog for each assigned blog post. They don't understand how to use the class platform website. They don't read the textbook I put together for them that explains how to do all of that, and don't read the instructions on any of the assignments.

And they whine to me about being unable to meet even my minimal expectations when they get an F.

I'm not saying my students can fuck off (even though I'd love to tell some of them that). It's not entirely their fault that they're so stupid. No, the ones that ought to fuck off are the ones that told them that they're capable of college level work when they're obviously not smart enough to do college level work.

The flo9r is yours.