killing me softly
irony has been especially apparent in my life this week. i bend over backwards to provide the best service possible in my lab and with the help of my awesome staff, i am certain we run one of the best labs on campus. this week, in my regular efforts to serve, it seemed nothing was good enough for anyone. if i said no to something, somebody took it as a yes or a maybe. students were suddenly allowed to not have personal responsibility and blame the equipment for everything that went wrong. computers suddenly came alive, working for evil, to destroy their assignments.
what is my point you ask? i spend so much time serving people who do not have any sense of personal responsibility while my own academic career is going into the toilet. myself and several of my coworkers/staff went above and beyond to provide tutelage to idiots while and i managed to bring in the following midterm scores: 88, 74, and 54. yes, you are right, i do rule. i am not blaming work for my bad grades because i have a sense of personal responsibility. i just marvel because i wouldn’t doubt that a majority of people i serve each day are more successful in an academic environment than i am but they cannot preform the simplest tasks or know the difference between a “Save” and a “Save As” or how to connect to the internet.
i am pained that my job (IT jobs in the academic environment) is considered blue collar jobs. and faculty jobs are considered to be white collar jobs. the lowest paid faculty member probably makes 10-20k than our highest ranked tech staff member (up to triple his salary) to know and research an area of what-ever-the-hell you can imagine. i realize research is very important not only to the university but also to to our world. but if he/the it staff wasn’t there for a week the place would implode…not because our systems are aren’t superior but because they are used by people who begrudge/resist technology. my experience working at the universities that i have is that the pecking order is: faculty, students, staff.
i’m not trying to sound all norma rae and shit but if staff members walk out…the university shuts down.
You are so right. You should hold the technology resources in the J-school hostage… until you get your demands met.
“i spend so much time serving people who do not have any sense of personal responsibility while my own academic career is going into the toilet.”
This smacks of the many sad and twisted ironies of life. I have my share as well, but I probably do not have your courage, as far as displaying them to the world. Knowing you, I know you will have your day, and your bloody revenge!
i think it is better if you can write more.