Deborah, You've Been Blogged!
I've been having sweater wars with the secretary of the department, who has an angelic mother-in-law who knits Starmore Sweaters for her. (Good ones, too -- she's excellent.) All winter, we show up for work, and look at what we're wearing, and sometimes I win and sometimes she does, but today, I'm wearing the trump card -- Roineval, the Holy Grail of Starmore sweaters. In the original yarns. Read 'em and weep.
Maybe it's not the best day to trump her sweater -- whatever it is that she's wearing today, I'm winning, we're both agreed on this -- as it's also the day I'm bringing in the Big Ol' Honkin' Basket of Bath Goodies in Excellent Packaging, which is what she gets from me every Christmas on account of having so cheerfully and competently put up with me being Director of Graduate Studies (as I mentioned yesterday, a Person Of Some Small Importance).
The thing is, I'm not the mostest bestest organized person. Also, I have my little ways. And all year, I show up at least twice a day in the office saying things like "I know you gave me a copy of the list two weeks ago, but now it's in my office, so I can't find it. Can I have another copy?" And "Will you call up International Student Relations and find out what the hell they did with this student's TOEFL scores?" And "We need to figure out exactly how many TA's we have at what stage, and so could you invent a spread sheet?" And "I'm like, SO sorry, but I forgot I need to hand this big stack of criticism out to my students, so could you make 30 copies of it? I need it in two hours."
And she does all this stuff not only without complaining, but actually seeming at least to be cheerful about it. Also, she thinks I'm funny.
So I adore her.
When I first arrived in the department, back when I was a junior professor (and, I might add, in case some of them are reading this, a Really Well Behaved one), we had a secretary who was a Holy Terror. She was rude to the female professors; she refused to do any copying and also wouldn't let us use the machine ourselves (we had to sneak in, which is sorta humiliating if you're dragging a doctorate around and professing Chaucer); she hired only incompetent student help, so that she could train said help up to be clones of herself, I guess; she never had time to do anything cause she had to spend all the time she had cutting holiday shapes out of construction paper and taping them to the walls.
I think Sam used to do all his copying over at the Kinko's, just to stay away from her. I, on the other hand, groveled. I've got no pride in these matters. Also, it was cheaper.
All of which is to say that I know a good thing when I see one.
Deborah, you've been blogged! Merry Christmas!
Maybe it's not the best day to trump her sweater -- whatever it is that she's wearing today, I'm winning, we're both agreed on this -- as it's also the day I'm bringing in the Big Ol' Honkin' Basket of Bath Goodies in Excellent Packaging, which is what she gets from me every Christmas on account of having so cheerfully and competently put up with me being Director of Graduate Studies (as I mentioned yesterday, a Person Of Some Small Importance).
The thing is, I'm not the mostest bestest organized person. Also, I have my little ways. And all year, I show up at least twice a day in the office saying things like "I know you gave me a copy of the list two weeks ago, but now it's in my office, so I can't find it. Can I have another copy?" And "Will you call up International Student Relations and find out what the hell they did with this student's TOEFL scores?" And "We need to figure out exactly how many TA's we have at what stage, and so could you invent a spread sheet?" And "I'm like, SO sorry, but I forgot I need to hand this big stack of criticism out to my students, so could you make 30 copies of it? I need it in two hours."
And she does all this stuff not only without complaining, but actually seeming at least to be cheerful about it. Also, she thinks I'm funny.
So I adore her.
When I first arrived in the department, back when I was a junior professor (and, I might add, in case some of them are reading this, a Really Well Behaved one), we had a secretary who was a Holy Terror. She was rude to the female professors; she refused to do any copying and also wouldn't let us use the machine ourselves (we had to sneak in, which is sorta humiliating if you're dragging a doctorate around and professing Chaucer); she hired only incompetent student help, so that she could train said help up to be clones of herself, I guess; she never had time to do anything cause she had to spend all the time she had cutting holiday shapes out of construction paper and taping them to the walls.
I think Sam used to do all his copying over at the Kinko's, just to stay away from her. I, on the other hand, groveled. I've got no pride in these matters. Also, it was cheaper.
All of which is to say that I know a good thing when I see one.
Deborah, you've been blogged! Merry Christmas!
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