I was afraid I was about to stomp this post, but nope!
See, that's what you get for taking the time to write a post, instead of cribbing your kid's paper flyer in about two seconds. Fool!
My kid used to be in the "Cheetah's" room, which unfortunately is also the name of a local strip club.
Mara is a Teddy Bear and there was a very urgent meeting yesterday, which intrigued us greatly as new-to-preschool/daycare parents. It turned out to be all about how parents should just hug their kids when dropping them off, not hustle them into the bathroom and whatnot. Because they can never move up to the S/nsh/ne Room if they don't learn to be independent! We had no idea we were in the minority in terms of actually doing what we'd already been told to do in this regard.
There's USDA grant money covering some or all of their food, so we only have to supply vast quantities of toothbrushes, since every time the teacher catches someone dropping one on the floor she has to replace it.
My grandmother gave us a big lecture about dropping of Hawaiian Punch at daycare.
Grandma: You probably say 'Be good!' when you drop her off, right?
We don't, but it doesn't work not to agree with Grandma's premises when she's in lecture-mode, so we agreed that we do.
Grandma: You shouldn't. You should say 'Be kind.'
I can't remember the convoluted reason why, now. Something like "be good" means to obey rules, but "be kind" means to develop your own inner moral compass. Sure, why not.
I'd recommend transferring HaPu to a daycare with access to tap water.
Sometimes kindness is a necessary evil.
5: Your grandma stories kill me. She sounds like a trip, but, my god. You're a very good granddaughter.
8: She's a kind granddaughter, too, which is why she shares these hilarious grandma stories with us!
I got to tell Mara last night not to play with someone who was being mean. It was a satisfying thing to do as a first-time parent, plus I really don't like that kid or the smug parents who let her run wild at the potlucks.
8: I think I'm only so easy-going with her because half of me is already excitedly sharing the incident here or on my blog.
Arent you supposed to tell your kid to "Be tough! Be number 1! Dont take any flack from any other kids!"?
I just plead with my kids to stay clothed until they get home. Sometimes they do.
How many kindergarteners can you fight off?
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
No, what you should tell your tyke upon dropoff is: "Be afraid. Be very afraid. K, bye!"
"Always save one last bullet for yourself."
14. I am glad someone else had that reaction to the wolves.
I'm not getting the bit about the filled water cup for lunch: you have to provide the water, I take it?
Or, what Jesus said (in 6).
The pacing of the story in 14/17 is fantastic.
I'm not getting the bit about the filled water cup for lunch: you have to provide the water, I take it?
No, pre-notice, we were asked to provide one empty cup (ostensibly for water, I assumed), and one cup full of juice (or something non-perishable) for lunchtime.
20: Oh. And now you have to bring two empty cups and one filled with fruit juice. I think; since you said three. Sure, why not.
I don't really get it, why one sippy cup for water isn't enough, but I'm sure it's okay unless your finances are really, really tight. Maybe the kiddies drool in their first water cup so a second one is needed.
Tangentially, I hear some public school systems are asking parents to send their kids to school at the beginning of the year with a certain number of supplies of things like trash bags and toilet paper these days. Unfortunately I don't recall where I read that. A bit shocking.
So if they're willing to fill an empty cup with water for snack, why do they need a second empty cup now? They sound irritating.
In the old H building at Berkeley High, the student washrooms almost never had toilet paper but some of the teachers kept a supply in their desks.
21.last.: Every year my kids have been in the NYC schools. Requested quantities would be absurd if everyone brought that amount of stuff in, so I assume that only a quarter of the class does so, and their contributions cover everyone.
They're probably just wanting the parents to wash the water cups each night, rather than having to do it themselves during the day. If you don't have a lot of staff, and your priority is supervising the kids, you might prefer not to have to step away for however long to wash cups partway through the day.
I'm totally confused. Are they supplying the water and the juice, or are you? Are they periodically washing the cups, or are you? If I'm reading the message right, there's one cup that will stay in the room forever, for water, one cup that you bring daily (per 20, for water), and one cup that you bring daily filled with juice?
There must be an easier way.
They're probably just wanting the parents to wash the water cups each night, rather than having to do it themselves during the day.
So what does "each child bring a sippy cup that will stay in the room just for their water cup" mean? That sounds like the staff must wash them there.
23, 24: It's enough to make you think the nation's priorities aren't quite right. It really gets my goat, I tell you what. I can barely stand to watch celebrity TV at this point.
I think you all are reading it as well as Jammies and I were able to; we were confused. Apparently they can wash the new, permanent cup on occasion, but the other two cups go home every night. We thought one of the existing cups was already a water cup, filled from the tap in the bathroom, so I'm not sure when exactly that cup isn't fulfilling the new government regulation.
I hear some public school systems are asking parents to send their kids to school at the beginning of the year with a certain number of supplies of things like trash bags and toilet paper these days
This is true at my kids' school. Mostly they want school supplies, paper etc. But also Kleenex, paper towels and various other consumables.
In the high school my friend taught at, the stalls were all kid height, so when you stood up you had to actively avert your eyes, or get an eyeful.
It's enough to make you think the nation's priorities aren't quite right.
It's enough to make me want to take every Tea Party know-nothing screaming about "fiscal responsibility"and nail them to crosses.
27: I forgot that part. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure it's not a big deal ultimately, but it is confusing.
The socialized future is a day care employee making a child drink from a sippy cup that stays in the same room--forever.
32: That too, but it's not just Tea Party know-nothings, for the record. An astonishing number of people across the spectrum have accepted gross levels of income inequality as normal and god-given, have come to assume that private markets do better at overall welfare than most private, government-driven programs can possibly do, and so on.
I nearly gag these days at the extent to which talk of belt-tightening and shared sacrifice -- by everybody! across the board! -- is the accepted mantra.
For the second "private" in 35, read "public". Public, government programs.
If this revolution goes well, it's going to be annoying to listen to the right wing repeatedly give credit to the bold vision of W for the next thirty years, until it finally becomes the mainstream consensus.
He had strong opinions about sippy cups, W did.
37: Does heebie send her kids to a Tunisian day care?
This is true at my kids' school. Mostly they want school supplies, paper etc. But also Kleenex, paper towels and various other consumables.
It's like taxation, but fair and equitable, and you know where the money is going. Great improvement, right?
37: Which revolution? You mean the Republican resurgence?
I think we're going to have to insist on taking a careful look at what counts as going well.
41: That was meant to be a comment in the Tunisian thread.
An astonishing number of people across the spectrum have accepted gross levels of income inequality as normal and god-given
An astonishing number of people apparently take Matthew 26:11 as a call to action.
More or less OT:
After walking away from my rage last night over McArdle, I watched a fascinating PBS episode of "American Experience" on the CCC -- the Civilian Conservation Corps program -- in the 1930s.
A link is here. Includes Jonathan Alter as historian/commentor. A sort of transcript of the narration here. The transcript doesn't capture the whole piece, with images, footage of FDR's speeches, etc., even remotely. I highly recommend watching the whole thing.
I honestly had no idea the CCC was such a monumental program, the general point of which was to bootstrap millions of people out of poverty and unemployment, get the economy going again, renew morale, and begin to refresh our desperately depleted US lands with major farm and forest rebuilding efforts.
It was charged with being a socialist takeover; the headlines at the time were remarkably similar to those today. Lifting a quotation from the transcript linked above by a man who participated at the time, which I was struck by while watching last night:
I remember having, you know, discussions with individuals who were so angry that they were saying, you know, "To heck with the government. Maybe this whole system maybe ought to be changed." The seeds were there. I mean, the people were there who were angry enough to do it. I would say that FDR is the one that saved this country, you know, from having a revolt.
I do encourage people to watch it.
The CCC sounds an awful like the CCCP, IYKWIM.
My pops was in the CCC. He loved it -- building things in national parks in WA state.
45: The PBS program does a decent job noting both that as well as the fact that it was a fantastic program that worked. That's why I say I really wish people would watch it.
The similarities are there.
On the other hand. The rich farmlands of the country had been completely trashed: we had trashed the place. The Dustbowl. It was not funny, and the idea that we should all just sit around with begging bowls in impoverished cities, or ride the rails in search of non-existent work, sucking our thumbs and not knowing what to do, seems .. a little daft. The CCC proposed that we do something about it, and put forward the work to be done, on a large scale. I can't help but see parallels to today; we have infrastructure problems, after all.
Again: the PBS program treats all this fairly. It's not a black and white issue. Sometimes we need wide-scale government-led action; it doesn't work every time; it's not an ideological matter.
An astonishing number of people apparently take Matthew 26:11 as a call to action.
I have to say, that line was totally out of character. Rewrite!
"The poor you will always have with you, so get started helping them, buckos."
I have to say, that line was totally out of character.
I've never known how to read it. But then I've never read the Bible, so I thought maybe in context one or more readings made sense over others. Jesus as cynic? As realist? He's not my god, so it's just something someone said. "There will always be poor": well, yeah, probably. What's your point?
The context is that he's about to be crucified, and he's kind of whinily asking his apostles to pay attention to him for the evening.
Of course, a lot of professional athletes take Matthew 26:7 as a call to action: There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.
50: Really? I didn't know that.
I make the confession that a lot of my understanding of the run-up to the crucifixion scenario is colored by Jesus Christ Superstar, where Jesus is a pretty human kind of person, who's freaked out about a great deal of what's being asked of him. So it's okay if he said that. He's certainly allowed to be an intelligent person beset by doubts and trying to say things in trying circumstances.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are very short. Read them!
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are very short.
Really? It's hard to tell from their writing, but I always figured 'em to be of average height for the day and age.
How'd you guys all get so smart? I'm in constant awe.
53: I've heard that. Okay. Not tonight, though.
56: Now once you've read them, reconcile them! Extra credit: reconcile the two creation myths in Genesis.
I always figured 'em to be of average height for the day and age.
Have you seen period-correct ossuaries? They're tiny!
Have you seen period-correct ossuaries? They're tiny!
And it's adorable when they make them into little churches!
57: Oh wait wait I know this one. It's called the synoptic problem!
John the Baptist loved to go around claiming he could dunk, but this was a misleading statement and applied only to his actions in the Jordan River.
On the other hand, Luke's penchant for singing "We represent the Holy Pop Guild" was adorable.
||
I know four/chan and such are busy hacking all the governments, but I wish they would set aside a few moments to adapt this random thing I found on an image search into some funny macros. "I'm glad they got their boat back, but that's such an awful name, really!"
>
Jesus is a pretty fully human kind of person
An astonishing number of people across the spectrum have accepted gross levels of income inequality as normal and god-given, have come to assume that private markets do better at overall welfare than most private, government-driven programs can possibly do, and so on.
Along the lines of supposedly true economic claims, here's something I was wondering about the other day. People say that businesses hire more employees if they will make more money by doing so, right? You hire the marginal employee when it's more profitable to do so, and lay them off when they're not needed.
(There's a side argument about whether the reason that the end of the recession didn't mean a hiring boom is because there were a lot of not-very-useful workers that employers decided they don't need to hire back. But that's not my question.)
But how does this account for the 10% or so of the workforce that is employed in the nonprofit sector? Even if you bracket out universities and hospitals (and that's a big IF), this just seems like a big gaping hole in the above explanation.
I mean, whether you can hire a new employee in the nonprofit sector very often has nothing whatsoever to do with whether that person is needed. First off, the people paying the bills aren't shareholders -- they're the government agencies, private donors, and foundations who fund the nonprofit. They're generally never the clients of the nonprofit.
And if your funders don't think you need a new person, you can't have one, regardless of how badly you need one. Or maybe you can have a new person in 2012 if everyone in agrees in 2010. Or you can have half of a new person if you can find someone else to pay for the other half. Or you can have a new person who does event planning, but not one who does database administration.
So what am I missing? Are all those people who say "Hiring will start up again when employers decide they need workers" just implicitly talking about only for-profit companies? And if so, do they have an explanation for the nonprofit sector? Inquiring minds would like to know.
There's a side argument about whether the reason that the end of the recession didn't mean a hiring boom is because there were a lot of not-very-useful workers that employers decided they don't need to hire back
There's a side argument made by liars who want to harm your personal interests, who were directly personally responsible for the crisis, that this time for no apparent reason everyone who lost their job was history's greatest monster!
Also, the CCC. Sometimes Bob is right.
So what am I missing?
If it didn't work the way they say it does, the math would be a lot less elegant. So it must work that way.
I'm being a bit snarky, I suppose. The typical answers would gesture towards marginal-productivity contributions being a pressure even on non-profits, insofar as they want to maximize the value they get out of their budgets; a tendency, if not an iron law. (Another gesture might be towards donations flowing in the direction of more-efficient charities.) Persuasive? Not really. Our favorite polymath has some stuff on the subject, or at least related subjects, on his absurdly misnamed blog.
So what am I missing? Are all those people who say "Hiring will start up again when employers decide they need workers" just implicitly talking about only for-profit companies? And if so, do they have an explanation for the nonprofit sector? Inquiring minds would like to know.
1) I am not certain what you mean by "non-profit" here. Ford Foundation? Planned Parenthood? Red Cross? Or Forest Service and Bureau of Labor Statistics and SEC? FBI?
2) I would say many to most workers in the for-profit world are hard to directly justify on a marginal product basis. I suppose HS tries to explain how the N+1 accountant or IS tech earns his salary, but it is likely BS. When it can be afforded, people are hired.
When the money is there.
3) I am a crazed MMT guy, with unlimited admiration for Beveridge and Minsky. Gov't should always be competing for the marginal worker. Gov't should print money, hire people doing whatever at wages just slightly below prevailing market, or above during recessions, and then tax the hell out of everybody to control inflation.
4) Big gov't creates necessary infrastructure. It may be hard to explain to somebody not right on it how the Forest Service or BLS or SEC (or schools or NHS)help keep industry profitable, but it does, and shorting gov't will bite worse than almost anything a polity can do to itself.
The thing to keep in mind when people assholes talk about "marginal product" of particular workers is that the idea is so misleading as to be almost useless. "Marginal productivity" is just a partial derivative of the production function, which will vary depending upon how the production process is arranged, which is itself determined by the relative prices of various inputs. If it were to be maximized, accepting the rational-choice framework, the maximand would be the benefits accruing to those who get to do the maximization (e.g. upper management). The idea that these partial derivatives of a imagined function represent the Real Value of a Worker is about as misleadingly ideological a claim as you can get.
Oh, and yeah, what Alex said: the Cambridge Capital Controversy. Where's the D^2 Hunting Owl-signal?
(And yes I know that's not the CCC Alex had in mind, I was making a funny.)
Coincidentally, I was pondering today what an ELR* gov't should do during booms. ELR theoretically controls inflation partially by this method, as booms hire people away from gov't, gov't spending should go down. You do not necessarily want to lose all your best people to the private market.
Employer of Last Resort.
But how does this account for the 10% or so of the workforce that is employed in the nonprofit sector? Even if you bracket out universities and hospitals (and that's a big IF), this just seems like a big gaping hole in the above explanation.
Nonprofits are often businesses like any other, except that they cannot distribute profits to owners. They can pay management more, build empires, crush competitors, and generally respond to the economy the way a for profit business does. This is especially true for hospitals, universities, and other schools. If you bracket them out, the nonprofit sector is smaller than the wart removal industry.
Last:You were talking about the CCC. Do people know that after the Bank Holiday and re-opening, FDR put a twenty-something in purt near every fucking bank in the country. Thousands. Just looking over the shoulders. Or maybe just jobs. I wasn't born for these times.
Back to evening entertainment. Quit distracting me.
Mitsui and Mitsubishi, regarded as the main speculators in dollars, thus became the targets of social opprobrium. Because the government and the Bank of Japan tightened monetary conditions by raising the discount rate in order to absorb the speculators' funds, the depression became even more severe. Dollar speculators, particularly the foreign banks, could not readily reverse their course and cancel their dollar buy-orders. As the end-of-December delivery date rapidly approached for the bulk of the foreign-exchange dollars sold, their expected hope of realizing speculative gains grew steadily dimmer. On December 11, the Minseito cabinet finally collapsed, disagreeing over Home Minister Adachi Kenzo's insistence on a coalition with the Seiyukai.
This, and the block in 73, from Cambridge History, v6
At the heart of the early phase of "Takahashi finance," which lasted until 1933, was a triad of policies consisting of low interest rates, a low exchange rate, and increased fiscal spending. Under these policies the Japanese economy began to recover rapidly. In 1929, at the time the gold embargo was lifted, Takahashi had argued publicly that there was a difference between a nation's economy and that of an individual. Saving and economizing produced increases in individual assets, but for the nation as a whole, they caused a decline in demand and depressed production. Even the money spent at geisha houses became income for the geisha and cooks, and this in turn was respent, increasing demand for the nation as a whole. If gold were disembargoed, fiscal spending squeezed, and public works investment suspended, Takahashi argued, contractors and their employees would lose their jobs first; then as their expenditures declined, the effects would spread to other fields, and both incomes and employment in general would fall, thereby inviting a business slump. Takahashi intuitively understood the "theory of effective demand" subsequently advanced by Keynes, and from that point of view, he criticized lifting the gold embargo at the old parity. As finance minister, Takahashi's policies were based on the concept of promoting effective demand.
I know of one non-profit that started hiring (including someone I know, among others) right after the close of the fiscal year last year. They are partly filling in vacant positions and partly expanding what they do.
The argument that businesses only hire when it's profitable to do so seems to assume that the business will be doing just the same things it's been doing. But you could hire and expand, but make the same amount of profit, percentage-wise. My extremely limited experience with both small non-profits and small for-profits has been that hiring was more for replacement/expansion than for increasing profits (which a non-profit could put into wages/upgrading equipment, I guess, hence the non-profit), though I assume there was a long-run goal of increasing profits/non-profit equivalent. The non-profit was helped by a big one-time donation, though.
Also, non-profits running partly/largely off of endowments/investments might be waiting to see how the markets go before starting to hire again.
32
It's enough to make me want to take every Tea Party know-nothing screaming about "fiscal responsibility"and nail them to crosses.
It makes me think the school district is totally incompetent or worse. What are the odds that there is no toilet paper because the maintenance staff is stealing and selling it? NYC school custodians are of course notoriously corrupt.
What are the odds that there is no toilet paper because the maintenance staff is stealing and selling it?
I'm going to have to with "exceedingly low", but the mental image of a custodian spending his or her evenings in a dark alley in a trench coat lined with rolls of single-ply for sale is delightful, James. So thanks.
James is an awesome troll! I worry about him sometimes, but I have to assume that he's trolling; it lets me sleep at night.
I walked two miles today. That helps me sleep.
44: General Marshall of "Marshall Plan" fame helped implement the CCC before being called to Washington in the late 1930s. It allegedly gave him ideas on how to (i) make an army out of US civilians, which came in handy in the 1941-45 timeframe, and (ii) run an aid program, which came handy when it was time to rebuild Europe, see Marshall Plan, supra.
Don't know how many sippy cups were involved.
Speaking of trolling, apparently some kids* went ahead and trolled people who can get subpoenas. The top two links in the article attached might be needed to understand. I don't get how it is a crime.
*I'm stereotyping youth and I don't care.
77 78
See here and here for 2 NYT articles on corrupt custodians (from 2001 and 2005 but nothing changes). The 2005 article starts:
Sixteen school custodians were arrested yesterday on charges of taking kickbacks from corrupt vendors who were paid for cleaning products and other supplies that were never delivered.
80: Thanks, about Marshall. I didn't know that.
Coincidentally, I was pondering today what an ELO gov't should do during booms. ELO theoretically controls percussion partially by this method, as booms hire people away from string sections, string arrangements should go down. You do not necessarily want to lose all your best melodies to the bass line.
There's a side argument about whether the reason that the end of the recession didn't mean a hiring boom is because there were a lot of not-very-useful workers that employers decided they don't need to hire back
this argument is absolute nonsense, and the fact that Brad DeLong appears to take it seriously enough to argue against it makes me seriously question his judgement.
The argument that businesses only hire when it's profitable to do so seems to assume that the business will be doing just the same things it's been doing knows its arse from its elbow.
Fixed that.
The idea that business makes rational decisions on employment based on sound economic signals is the greatest con job we've been sold the past thirty years.
The idea that business anyone makes rational decisions on employment anything based on sound economic signals is the greatest con job we've been sold the past thirty years.
86
this argument is absolute nonsense, and the fact that Brad DeLong appears to take it seriously enough to argue against it makes me seriously question his judgement.
Brad Delong's post .
James is an awesome troll! I worry about him sometimes, but I have to assume that he's trolling; it lets me sleep at night.
No, he authentically hates everyone who works in public schools. Kind of like how most people think of debt collection agencies. "What kind of twisted, warped person would want to work in a horrible environment like that, doing nothing but making things worse for everyone?"
86 is a bit harsh, given that he does actually disagree with it. Are there really arguments that shouldn't even be countered?
90
No, he authentically hates everyone who works in public schools. ...
Untrue, I don't hate teachers. In fact I think they are often unfairly maligned for failing in effect to teach short kids to be tall. Although they bring some of this upon themselves by suggesting that they can.
82: if the most recent case of corruption you can find is from 2005, that makes them significantly less corrupt than (to pick an example entirely at random) the House Republicans.
93
As I said, nothing changes .
School investigators are probing a veteran school custodian who owns 10 houses in Queens worth a combined $5.8 million -- and whose former employees contend they were paid with school funds to gut and renovate the homes.
Several workers also accuse Roosevelt HS campus custodian Trifon Radef -- paid more than $170,000 annually after 36 years of service for the Department of Education -- of splitting school funds with pals for whom he created no-show gigs.
It would probably cramp the style of guys like this to spend their maintenance budget on frivolities like toilet paper for the kids.
1200 public schools in NYC, James, serving, on average, about 1000 kids per. That's a ton of custodians. Were you somehow surprised that their management included corrupt individuals? Were you expecting that people employed by the public are somehow different than those employed by *every other institution including for-profit corps*?
Also, Roosevelt HS is in Nassau County, not NYC.
||
I'm kind of hoping that just writing this down will give me clarity.
The provost asked Colleague and I to head an internal course development program that came with some stipends. From the get-go, the Colleague and I have had wildly different opinions about the kind of commitment we should require of faculty participants. I wanted lots of collaboration, she wanted high levels of faculty autonomy. (Obviously these are not opposites, but in every conversation it got treated as though they are.) I generally like Colleague, but through compromising, the program has been watered down to something I'm a little uncomfortable with.
We were expected to have faculty participants present their work before this semester. I went on maternity leave at Thanksgiving and just now came back, so Colleague was in charge of all of the presentation business.
Colleague emailed me the other day and said "Hey, wasn't everybody supposed to get compensation?" I found an ancient email detailing what compensation she and I and participants might expect. We all received compensation over the summer, but more was supposed to be coming during the year.
I wrote to the provost reminding him of this, and CCd my colleague. He just wrote back, without CCing colleague. Basically he said he was disappointed in the presentations and didn't think that everyone deserved equal compensation. Could I share my opinion of who has done the most?
I don't even have written descriptions of each faculty member's projects, because every time I've proposed demanding anything of them, my colleague has balked. I have no way of answering this question, and the question itself makes me feel uncomfortable.
I don't want to throw my colleague under the bus. But coming clean and saying "Look, we've kind of been screwing around for the last four months" is what I actually believe has happened. But I think that will effectively throw her under the bus, because the administration has probably noticed that she has been a PITA over this whole thing.
Ok, writing it down has not given me clarity. Any advice?
|>
This is hard to answer without knowing more about various relationships and personalities involved. I'd pick up the and call provost and ask if not cc'ing colleague was intentional. If yes, why--was he trying just to get your opinion on this for some reason? Having that conversation with him should give you helpful information as to how to handle the situation. If not cc'ing her was an oversight (a lot of people just don't reply to all), then I'd forward the email to her, and see how she thinks the two of you should respond to the provost.
97: Is your relationship with Colleague such that you can have a Serious Talk About Things and explain, basically, what you just wrote out here? Seems that would at least be better than throwing Colleague under the bus.
Sorry, that was supposed to say "pick up the elephant and call"...
If the goal is not to throw her under the bus, and the provost hasn't expressly said "This is just between us, don't tell Colleague" step one is that whatever you write back, cc Colleague.
Then try and draft something that you wouldn't mind her reading: "Given that our goals were to maximize faculty autonomy, faculty participants interpreted the process requirements independently, and evaluation of relative effort levels would be impractical" or some kind of horseshit like that.
OTOH, if you want to throw her under the bus (or, more kindly, if you want the provost to understand the situation as you do), telephone the provost or go to their office for a chat, and do it orally.
Crossed with 98-100, all of which have useful ideas.
If your colleague is a philosopher, I think you're supposed to throw her under a trolley car, not a bus.
I feel for you, though. I've been in situations where I felt the quality of work produced by my partners and I was well below what it should be despite my entreaties to bust ass and produce something we could all be proud of. It sucks.
I think you ought to talk to your colleague directly about the email, without actually showing it to her (to maintain a semblance of respecting the provost's decision not to CC her). Hopefully that conversation will clarify the next step. Wish I could be more helpful.
It seems like there are two separate issues. I don't think the provost can just decide not to pay people now. That said, this sort of slackeration is embarrassing and your colleague(s) probably ought to be called on it, if they really fell down on what these presentations were supposed to accomplish.
LB's 101 seems pretty solid. In addition, though, I'm curious what was specified regarding the stipend at the outset. If a specific figure was promised, and the specified requirements were fulfilled, then I might just tell the Provost something like, "I certainly can appreciate your frustration. I think we all found coordinating this program to be rather challenging. But given that we promised everyone $X before we started, I don't think we can really renege on that now."
[CA's colleagues are forever pulling shit like this. Signing up for things that come with stipends and then half-assing as much as they can. There's a conference-y thing held every summer that pays a bunch of money for 4 full days of attendance (brain storming and presentation watching/giving) and one colleague who *always* signed up for it and *always* ducked out of each day's work after 2 or 3 hours "because of my kids"* was finally told not to sign up anymore.]
*Yes, he has kids. So do other people who do this dumb thing. And he also has a nanny.
"Given that our goals were to maximize faculty autonomy, faculty participants interpreted the process requirements independently, and evaluation of relative effort levels would be impractical"
If I correctly understand 97, this looks like it's exactly the result heebie is trying to avoid: taking ownership of this as a goal for the project with the provost. If I'm understanding the dilemma correctly, it's how to avoid taking any ownership of that goal or the general process without throwing her colleague under the bus in doing so.
(Sorry, got stuck in conversation right after posting that. Ok, I'm back.)
In terms of whether or not the CC was intentional, he wrote "Your response, as well as the fact that the information comes from you, will be strictly confidential."
So I think I'm allowed to CC colleague in my response, but it would be ignoring that sentence.
It's weird that you write "cc" in all-caps.
111: I was confused too, but it's because elephants are to be faced, not picked up.
Is your relationship with Colleague such that you can have a Serious Talk About Things and explain, basically, what you just wrote out here? Seems that would at least be better than throwing Colleague under the bus.
Only sort of. She keeps getting really defensive in the name of Autonomy! She seems to have this notion that Collaboration = Big Brother Watching Over You, and that there was going to be some sort of bait and switch, where if we agreed to head the program, we'd suddenly be forced to enforce all kinds of draconian rules.
110: Actually, with that sentence in there, I don't think you can cc her. I was thinking you could play dumb, and keep it on a "Fucked up? No one fucked up here. We intentionally handled this in a way that makes accountability impossible. If you wanted that not to happen, you should have told us beforehand" level. But that sentence makes it pretty explicit that he is intentionally talking to you behind her back.
Throwing her under a bus remains an option (and I'd want to in your shoes, but that's up to you of course). If you don't want to, I think you have to dig your heels in: "Compensation expectations were set on the basis of this email and can't really be adjusted at this point. Also, my understanding was that my role in this was to facilitate [or whatever], not to evaluate my colleagues' performance. I don't believe that I can usefully or accurately evaluate their performance on this task retrospectively, given that I was not approaching the matter from that angle contemporaneously."
Weaselly (and godawful prose, I apologize for it), but sometimes you have to weasel.
It might be helpful if heebie clarified what her goal here is, exactly, other than not throwing her colleague under the bus.
I feel like path 1 is to bluff that this whole project has been great. This would be very easy to do: nobody knows exactly what the courses looked like before the improvement, so I can just rave about how much respect I have for my colleagues, even if they have differing levels of humility about broadcasting how great they are, and I wasn't at the presentations anyway, so let's just split the money evenly.
Path 2 is to come clean and say that this whole thing hasn't lived up to his vision, while individually some people seem to have done great work, but it's basically impossible to assess exactly who is half-assing it. (Kind of true.)
Here's one more consideration: is there a path that lets me do this project right this coming summer? Or a path that lets me gracefully wash my hands of this project? Because I don't really want to spend another year doing it the same way.
Hmmm.
So, Heebs, I get the frustration at having a joint project turn out crappy in exactly the way you predicted it would if x, y, and z were not done, and the only reason x, y, and z were not done is b/c your Colleague thought they were unnecessary. But, if in your absence your Colleague ran things as you both agreed she would, you're on the hook too. You're still responsible for things you agreed to against your better judgment, so throwing your Colleague under the bus all by herself seems like kind of a crappy thing to do. Obvs if she changed the playbook while you were away, that's a different story.
I would suggest having a convo w the Provost in person to get a sense of what's going on, what the Provost thinks happened, and more specifics about went wrong. (Provosts are political animals, right? Yeah, face to face.) I assume the Provost knows you were on maternity leave, and so might assume you weren't responsible for whatever went wrong. You might want to have a convo with your Colleague after that, but I guess it depends.
Seems like a crappy situation to be in. Sorry about that.
Can you separate yourself from the process at all? It sounds like you really have no way of answering the provost's question; is there any reason not to make that clear? "One of the major points of discussion with Colleague has been how much autonomy participants in this process ought to have. An unfortunate consequence of the decision to opt for autonomy over collaboration is that I don't have much to go on to answer your question."
The thread grew much longer as I was writing, and it made me think I want to know more about the situation. As I indicated, the key question for me wrt ethics is whether or not Colleague stuck to the plan you both agreed to. Wrt politics etc...totally different.
is there a path that lets me do this project right this coming summer?
You have to either get Colleague on board with your way of managing it, which sounds hard, or get her off the project and replaced with someone who isn't going to screw it up the same way. From what you've said, the second is, I think your only realistic option.
Or a path that lets me gracefully wash my hands of this project?
Sure, say you can't manage it this year because of other work pressures.
117, 119: I kind of disagree on the ethical question. It sounds to me as if Colleague was frustratingly intransigent on her way of doing things. Heebie could have kicked up a fuss at the time, but instead she went along with Colleague. While kicking up a fuss might have been the right thing to do, I don't think there's anything ethically wrong with communicating that the approach taken was Colleague's idea, and that Heebie would have taken another path if they'd been able to work it out.
118 is what I'm drifting towards, as I've been outlining this for myself.
Is it appropriate to make the following points over email, or should I do it face to face?
1. Colleague and I had very different visions - autonomy vs collaboration. (Provost intended this to be collaborative, IMO.)
2. It occured with less collaboration than I'm comfortable with.
3. If I lead this again, I'd like authority to run the collaborative version, otherwise someone else is better fit to lead this.
4. That said, I've been impressed by my colleagues descriptions of their courses, but I haven't been privy to their development process, because of the lack of collaboration. On top of that, I wasn't at the presentations. So my judgement is that the money should be split equally among all participants.
Can I email this?
How about something like: "Going into this project, Colleague and I did quite a bit of wrestling over whether to emphasize autonomy or collaboration. Ultimately, the goal emphasized autonomy. Given that faculty participants interpreted the process requirements independently, and evaluation of relative effort levels would be impractical. Nevertheless, I understand your frustration with the results and am inclined to think that the lesson going forward is that we need a much more collaborative approach this summer."
122: I think that's absolutely fine to communicate, but I'd do it orally. Not so much to avoid committing yourself, but I think it's going to take a certain amount of back and forth to get everything clear. Is the provost approachable enough to go to his office and talk?
I find him fairly approachable, although he scares other people to death, so I think there's a shouty side of him I've never seen.
Also, my chair thinks he plays faculty members off each other. My chair is only sometimes a good judge of a situation. I don't want to participate if that's what's going on. But if the provost is just trying to get a frank read on the situation, I don't mind having the above conversation.
I like the wording of 118, as it seems simple and honest w/o ducking responsibility.
Heebs, I know this isn't a consensus, but in what you outline in 122, 2 begins to make me a little uncomfortable along the lines of what I outlined in 117. I mean, it depends a lot on what you say and how you say it. Laaaarge gray area. (Grey? never remember.) I mean, Colleague could (and probably does) have a VERY different recollection of how your conversations on this matter played out; I very much doubt that Colleague would describe him/herself as intransigent, even if they were, and in that case would probably perceive (rightly, according to their recollection) 2 as a betrayal. The rest all seems reasonable and right.
I would also really, really suggest that you do not email this, that you instead have this conversation in person. I honestly can't overemphasize this enough.
Ok, I sent him an email asking if he's got time to chat today. He does have a habit of just showing up outside one's door without advance notice, which makes me jumpy. But - thank god - he does not have a master key.
Just joining in to agree that I would not email anything suggesting that responsibility for a disappointing outcome falls on someone else. "This is strictly confidential" and "email" don't mix reliably.
And, on preview, glad to see you've decided to talk about it.
I would also suggest you limit the conversation basically to 1 and 4, with only a hint of 2, perhaps reworked as something closer to "the project ultimately played out closer to colleague's vision than mine." You can save 3 for a later conversation, since in this context it's both unnecessary and seems a little blame-y, especially when combined with your formulation of 2.
While I'd only do it orally, isn't it possible to be clear without being blamey? "There were two ways to approach it, collaborative and autonomous; Colleague and I discussed it, and while I'd originally thought that collaborative was the way to go, she convinced me that we should take the autonomous approach, and so that's what we agreed on. While this had its advantages (some professors did wonderful work), it makes the kind of after-the-fact evaluation you want to do impossible. Given that it now seems that your vision was much more collaborative than the approach we took, when we do the project next year could you be explicit about the collaborativeness requirements so we don't drift away from your vision again?"
The only blame is on the provost for being unclear, and you're saying you agreed to what actually happened, but you're also saying that you share his ideas on how it should have worked and want his help in doing it that way next time.
132 isn't blamey, no, but it's also markedly different in tone from 122, in ways that I'm not sure heebie is comfortable with (although I've made essentially that same point now three times to you, so we're obviously viewing what heebie is comfortable with differently here, and I'm not sure she's clarified).
More than anything, though, point 3 just seems to potentially complicate the conversation in ways that it isn't necessary to complicate it at this point. I'm not sure I understand any reason to be discussing next year right now.
I think the last part of 133.1 sounded sharper than was intended.
I'm with urple. LB suggests a fine way to be a team player and own the bad result, but I'm not sure that's what I thought heebie wanted to do.
That is, you think heebie might not be comfortable with telling the provost that she agreed to the 'autonomous' approach? I don't think she has an option other than admitting that she agreed to it (with or without an explanatory "Wasn't my idea, Colleague talked me into it, but I agreed that we'd take her path"), or fullscale under-the-bus-throwing: "I knew this was going to go wrong, but I couldn't get Colleague on track to do it right. I'm so sorry I let her fuck this up, Chief," which would be pretty lousy.
Is there an intermediate path I'm not seeing? (Other than refusing to answer emails from the provost and running in the other direction when he appears.)
Other than refusing to answer emails from the provost and running in the other direction when he appears.
Twelve years into my career and this plan still works for me.
That is, you think heebie might not be comfortable with telling the provost that she agreed to the 'autonomous' approach?
Yes, exactly. 122.1-2 reads to me like your under-the-bus routine, but without so much "I'm so sorry, Chief" as you include. It may or may not be lousy, and I don't know nearly enough about their interaction to know if it's warranted, but it seems to be the truth of the matter as I understand it.
135: Well, this is dona's point. I'm inbetween you and dona: I don't think there's anything wrong with identifying what happened as Colleague's way of doing it, and making it clear that Heebie would have done it differently if she hadn't had Colleague in the mix. But the bad outcome really is Heebie's responsibility to an extent; she went along with Colleague rather than kicking up a fuss before it all went bad, and it's problematic to try and move forward without owning it.
Well, the frustrating conversations over the summer included the Provost's right-hand man, so I suspect the Provost has been informed exactly how difficult the colleague was being. We were told pretty explicitly to make it highly collaborative, and she wouldn't agree to co-lead it unless it could become much more autonomous. So they knew it was becoming much less collaborative than they intended, and they knew that push was coming from her.
The realistic version of running from the provost is just refusing to communicate helpfully about it -- just kind of blow smoke and fail to understand what he's asking for. And that's a genuine option, but I'd get yourself off the project for next year if that's how you're going.
What power does the Provost have? Can he turn off your heat or something?
I don't have any good advice (do I ever?), but I'm certain you'll choose the wise path, heebie! Because you're the BEST!
Well, the frustrating conversations over the summer included the Provost's right-hand man, so I suspect the Provost has been informed exactly how difficult the colleague was being.
This helps. "As I'm sure you know from Phil, who was a participant in all of the planning conversations last summer, Colleague's vision was strongly autonomous, and that's what you and Phil approved. Obviously, it's not practical to evaluate professors individually after the fact given the autonomous approach. If you're thinking we should take a more collaborative approach next year, then that's the approach you should authorize."
Tone that down so you're not calling him a moron quite so hard, but if the provost's guy was in on all the planning, he knew what was happening and could have stopped it if he wanted something different. It's all on him, and given [Phil]'s participation, it's not you're responsibility at all, despite 139.last.
'You're'? I'll be committing ritual suicide now, thanks.
Sorry for commenting so much, but I'm compensating for my exceptionally small penis.
But the bad outcome really is Heebie's responsibility to an extent; she went along with Colleague rather than kicking up a fuss before it all went bad, and it's problematic to try and move forward without owning it.
I feel like some of this is implicit. I mean, the Provost knows she was a co-leader, who didn't have the ability to pull rank on Colleague. So if she says "I didn't want it to be this way," he'll know that Colleague dug in her heels and heebie declined to make a game of chicken out of it. I guess she could've run to the Provost and complained at the time (this may be what you mean by "kick up a fuss,") but I wouldn't assume that that would've been better than what she did, in the moment.
Also, I agree that Phil's presence helps. If things were so far off the rails that the Provost needed to intervene on the spot, he should've known it at the time.
Is 140 intended as an affirmation of 138? Because it reads that was to me.
97 is really about Unfogged, right? Am I reading too much into it?
I don't think you have to explicitly identify that the noncollaboration was anyone in particular's idea (unless you want to). But you could still agree with the fact that the outcome was not ideal, and blame this on all the autonomy. "We ended up deciding to do lots of autonomy and little collaboration because of some reasons like A B and C. However, it turned out that this resulted in it being very hard to assess anyone's work so if we do it again I would strongly recommend that we try less autonomy and more collaboration"
I feel like people will read between lines about whether you were really on board with the plan as it happened, and be on your side about whether it should happen again like that or not. Also then you can tell the colleague "well we tried it your way and the provost didn't like it so now let's try it my way and see if it works better"
My original comment was that this is hard to answer without knowing more about various relationships and personalities involved, and that's still true, but the combination of 97.5, 126.2 and 140 is starting to make me think the provost is being as much of a problem here as the colleague.
151: Wait, I'm confused. Are you advocating we take the mean or the average of those three comments?
But - thank god - he does not have a master key.
So you're saying he's more Zuul and less Vinz Clortho?
Oh my, does 140 change things. Be careful of that Provost. It sounds like he's trying to a) not own his own involvement (or perhaps his communication with Phil in this matter wasn't ideal, but whatevs, the Provost's office was involved), b) not have to pay for or take full responsibility for a program he (and possibly his superiors) view as disappointing, all while c) forcing you to be the one to deliver all the bad news, both to faculty members who aren't getting the $ and to Colleague (hence the confidential email).
Basically I think Provost is trying to make you into a bagman. This is bad. And sneaky. Perhaps Provost deserve's his/her reputation.
You may actually want to have some of this over email, if that's the case.
151: This, very much so. The provost's guy was in the planning meetings, and knew how Colleague planned to run it and that Heebie would have preferred to do it differently. That the provost is coming to Heebie now, dissatisfied with the outcome, makes it look to me as if he either is a rotten manager or that he really is trying to play Heebie off against Colleague.
When you talk to Provost, can you get [Phil] in the room? The key fact here seems to me to be that [Phil] knew everything beforehand, so the project was run in a manner that provost had at least implicitly approved, and if he didn't like the results he needs not to approve a plan to do it wrong.
Maybe it's just my childlike trusting nature, but I'm not quite as suspicious of Provost in this scenario as others seem to be. Rather than imputing sinister motives, I'm inclined to think that he wasn't really paying attention to this whole thing over the summer notwithstanding Phil's presence at the meetings, and now just wants to figure out what happened, by talking to the most-involved person whose judgment he trusts.
Trying to get out of paying what was promised is, however, undeniably shitty. So maybe I'm wrong.
I also think that unless there was some discussion ahead of time about how payment would be contingent on performance (with some sort of explicit rubric for how that would be measured) then paying people different amounts now is wrong. The provost can take this as a lesson to clarify expectations next time, but it's too late to punish people who already participated, even if he thinks they did a bad job.
And to be clear, I am assuming him to be a rotten manager. Not knowing what was going on with his own responsibilities is definitely bad management. But rotten manager != bad person.
Again, the trying-not-to-pay thing weighs pretty heavily against him, though.
but it's too late to punish people who already participated, even if he thinks they did a bad job.
I agree that at this point everyone should be paid equally, but I think the people who did bad jobs should have their phones confiscated for five days.
M/tch, with heebie it must be the mean.
156: That's possible, but it makes him a lousy manager, or Phil a lousy minion. That's kind of why I'd want Phil in the conversation with Provost: "You remember, Phil, back in August you and me and Colleague were hashing this out, and Colleague was very clear about her autonomous vision for the project, so that's the way it went. If there was going to be a need to evaluate afterwards, then that was probably the time to put it on a more collaborative track."
And everyone's right about the stipends -- it all depends on what promises were made, but it sure does look as though Provost is trying to renegotiate after the fact.
160: She is meaner than your average geebie.
It's quite possible that I'm overly suspicious, but I was alluding to some of this earlier when I mentioned that Provosts tend to be political animals. And, I guess this is obvious, but I really, really don't think I'm being overly suspicious, if only because people who to tend to rise to political positions generally don't get there without having certain skills.
Plus, Provost's already got a rep. And people are scared of Provost.
Be careful, is all.
161 crossed with, and agreeing with, 158.
Heebie, I'd suggest you liveblog the conversation with the provost. Then we can offer better advice in real time, as we get more information.
He's probably penning a book titled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Provost as we speak.
Personally, I'd be inclined to talk to the Prov alone, but, then, I really like cheese.
I really like cheese.
Trust me, Stanley, we can tell.
Is the provost trying to not pay some of the stipends, i.e. spend less money overall, or just distribute the money available unevenly so that those who slacked get less?
This is all very helpful and insightful. I've had students in my office, so I've been lurking.
170 is an interesting question in terms of figuring out where on the dumb-evil scale we put the Provost. Dona's also right that regardless, heebie should be careful not to join in the effort to deprive any of her colleagues of the money they were promised, whether the spoils go to other colleagues or to the Provost's slush fund.
If he wants to spend it on heebie's house renovations, on the other hand...
Also, Heebie U has a history of promising magical money that materializes into being a whole shiny nickel. Also, over the summer, the money we were told we'd get got cut in half because we met so much less often than the provost had intended. I felt that was somewhat reasonable, but should have been stated at the beginning of the summer, when the administration found out how often the faculty planned on meeting.
Compounding things is that the right-hand man was a faculty member who had been promoted very, very recently. So brand-new to his job.
170 is an interesting question in terms of figuring out where on the dumb-evil scale we put the Provost.
Isn't it possible the provost is genuinely disappointed in the results and wants to reward those who took the project seriously more than those who didn't?
Unless by "dumb" you simply mean "mismanaged the situation"?
spend less money overall, or just distribute the money available unevenly so that those who slacked get less?
I think both? He said something about unforseen budget shortfalls in his email. But he also said that he was disappointed that only three people presented their work before the semester, when he felt that presenting your work was a very easy task.
174.last is exactly what I meant. "dumb" was my shorthand for "bad manager" per 158, which is the only alternative to "knew what he was doing and is trying to screw heebie as well as her colleagues while keeping his own fingerprints off it."
95
Were you expecting that people employed by the public are somehow different than those employed by *every other institution including for-profit corps*?
Yes, he believes that public employees are leeches by temperament. He might say otherwise, but he does tend to be disingenuous about things like this.
126
Also, my chair thinks he plays faculty members off each other.
You don't say.
Seriously, it sounds like Colleague deserves to be thrown under the bus here. She insisted on the "autonomy" option, which in this context apparently means screwing around with nothing to show for it, despite the contrary opinion of both you and your mutual supervisor. I'm assuming it was known in advance that you'd be taking maternity-related time off around then; if so, she can hardly claim to have expected you to do more of the work or whatever. Now she's given you the responsibility to get both of you paid for this.
However, even if you did want to busthrow her, it's obviously very hard to just come right out and say that without making yourself look bad too.
I'd agree with the advice in 118, 120 and similar. I do think that you should get the stipend almost no matter what - he shouldn't be changing the requirements afterwards - and if that comes down to only you getting the stipend, well, that's Colleague's problem, not yours. I think months ago when planning this you should have got the provost to sign off on the plan you and Colleague came up with, at which point he would have either told the two of you to do it with more collaboration or been responsible for a product he didn't like... but that's obviously not helpful now.
178: But would be even more Germanic if it were 'underbusthrow'.
178: Agreed.
I think it should be pronounced "bust-hrow" though, with "hrow" pronounced and conjugated as in the British word meaning "to argue".
Everyone feels a little unterbusgeworfen now and then.
Speaking of which, what's that great German word meaning something like "a face asking to be slapped"?
Oh, I remembered. It's "backpfeifengesicht".
177 posted before I saw 140. Took me a while to write it. In light of that and later comments, I want to ease up on encouragements to busthrow the Colleague. I'd still be feel more obligated to protect your own stipend and reputation than hers, but now I'm more inclined to blame the boss for the problems than her.
Maybe this is just one of those things that people in academia take for granted, but getting promised money for something and then not getting it seems really shitty, even if it is just a stipend. Next time they ask for people on a committee or to organize a new program or something, if there's any kind of money involved, I'd ask up front to have everything in writing and make it clear why.
He said something about unforseen budget shortfalls in his email.
Oh...boy. Yeah. It sounds like Provost is possibly playing you off of each other, exacerbating a division s/he was already aware of, to cover his/her ass in other areas. And, based already on the secret email writing tendency (and the rep), Provost is willing to screw other people in the process.
I would be very careful, and try as best you can to stay out of it / avoid taking sides. Sounds like Provost is using you, or, at the very least, there's more going on than you're aware of.
FWIW, I don't really imagine the Provost sitting alone in a darkened office, laughing softly while s/he does the finger pyramid of contemplative evil. Some people just operate like this, and don't think they're doing wrong. It's also possible to be a bad manager wrt actually accomplishing goals etc. and still be very good at manipulating their way out of the fallout.
I really like cheese.
Just don't be saying that in this town on Sunday!
186: But he likes cheese that has been mauled by bears.
186: Down with the unholy cheese curd!
FWIW, I don't really imagine the Provost sitting alone in a darkened office, laughing softly while s/he does the finger pyramid of contemplative evil.
Oh, me neither. I prefer to imagine him twisting his moustache, Snidely Whiplash style.
189: You know, I've never eaten a deep-fried cheese curd, sometime F.I.B. that I am. I bet I would really like them.
I like nacho cheese! And YOU GUYS!
194: The internet says it's an slur against Illinoisans. In Wisconsin!
The (kinda pathetic) pejorative that Wisconsinites came up with for their southern neighbors -- Fucking Illinois Bastards, or Fibs.
Deep fried cheese curds are indeed tasty, as one might expect from a combination of cheese and deep fried.
And it is a little embarrassing for WI that FIB was the best they could come up with.
What is the anti-Wisconsin term in Illinois? Chessehead?
Wisconsin fans in town for the Rose Bowl angered me by their obnoxious behavior whilst I was trying to watch football several weeks ago. Hence, Wisconsin delenda est. Go Bears!
Also, I've long been a Steelers fellow traveller (not a "fan" since I don't live in or come from Pittsburgh and becoming a "fan" of that particular team requires more commitment than I am willing to put in).
However, these days, I don't think that anyone not in or from Western Pennsylvania can in good conscience root for QB Rapey McRape, so, Go Jets!
Illinoisites tried calling Wisconsinders FWBs but it was misconstrued.
Illinois doesn't need an anti-Wisconsin term because Wisconsin isn't important enough to be worth it.
Like with Massholes, only the important/populous state gets the nasty nickname.
198: I guess? But, like "queer," "cheesehead" has been re-appropriated.
According to an old (cheesehead) gf of my brother's, the FIB term really came into play back in the days when the drinking age in WI was 18 or 19, but in IL it was 21. So southern WI was continually overrun by drunken IL teens, which, you know, can't have been fun.
But, like "queer," "cheesehead" has been re-appropriated.
WE'RE HERE! WE LIKE CHEESE! GET USED TO IT!!
QB Rapey McRape
Bill Simmons has his ups and downs, but I do appreciate his efforts to stick Big Ben with the nickname "The White Mamba."
I refuse to be baited, particularly by a Bill Simmons reference.
Illinois doesn't need an anti-Wisconsin term because Wisconsin isn't important enough to be worth it.
This seems right, but my Illinois relatives spend a fair amount of time picking on Indiana. This trend seemed to increase when a nuttier wing of the family decamped to the Hoosier State and, coincidentally or not, ceased to seek dental care.
205: ?
I thought you and I were in agreement about this.
I'm shaken to realize that to a neutral observer, there's actually someone in the NFL more loathsome than Rex Ryan. Someone on the Steelers, even!
206: Because dentists are just a bunch of fluoride-pushers?
209: I believe the explanation was simpler. Something like, "Sure, Uncle R. lost a tooth, but he has more of them."
207 -- just mean I don't want to discuss Kobe in this context.
Rex Ryan is too perfect a superhero/supervillain name to be real.
211: Ahh, yes, I forgot your LA-ness. We'll leave Kobe aside, then.
Has Rex Ryan always talked so much shit? I didn't catch wind of it till the Pats game.
Oh, yes--he famously started calling the Jets "future Super Bowl Champions" the day after he arrived, or some such, has been yapping at Belichik all year, and even said their wild card game against the Colts was personal between himself and Manning.
|| Update on the Kofi Annan lecture: I've now got the booking form, and disappointingly, it is now called "The Future of Africa: challenges and opportunities". Shall I go? I've never seen Kofi Annan in the flesh before, and I haven't been in the Sheldonian since I matriculated, so it might be nice to do both at once.
|>
In better heebie-related news, I stopped by my local independent bookstore today to order your book. They were quite interested in the local author angle and promised to take a look at it and decide whether to stock it. (They wrote it down on an official list and everything!)
The Rex Ryan shit-talking was ridiculous, but I've been kind of digging the out-n-proud* kink stuff.
*Maybe not *that* out-n-proud, but no apologies, just "yeah, this is between me and my wife."
217: Wow. That's super awesome of you! Thanks!!
Infinite nacho party! In! My! Mouth!
I love you guys.
I've got what could be an ATM question (although it appears that no one is around):
Let's say that you need to do a short-term (less than a month) observational experience - not really meant to be an internship, but an opportunity to observe at a mid/high level the operations of a workplace - as part of an educational program. You cannot get any pay or course credit for this.
Let's say that you had a first choice, a place that you'd be interested in working for in the future, where you'd like to get this experience.
Let's say the first choice offered, instead of an opportunity to observe a wide range of things, an exciting opportunity to spend your experience doing relatively low-level work forming a small part of a larger project involving stuff you're already familiar with and did not express an interest in becoming even more familiar with.
Would it still be worth it to go for the opportunity, just to get a foot in the door? (There would still need to be an interview, and at least one other person is competing.) Or is their complete misunderstanding of what you're supposed to get out of the experience enough* to say forget it and move on and hope your next choice can come through?
*Also, their proposal contains at least one obvious typo, maybe more upon closer inspection. Employers are known to reject applicants for that sort of thing.
221: Hrm, on a first pass:
Option 1: Do the interview and attempt to determine from it whether doing the low-level work in the not-interesting project would have any chance of getting your foot in the door.
Option 2: Simply assume that the first choice's offer of low-level work in the not-interesting project amounts to the first choice treating the whole thing as a way to get free labor from some sucker who doesn't have a chance in hell of any foot-door-ingetting. Forget it and move on.
Is there any way of talking to people with knowledge of the first choice organization in order to get a handle on how they operate in this regard? Do they tend to reward recognized talent, and/or allow for a decent degree of movement in-shop? (I recall Apo saying that his current employer is great about this.)
Also, how bad would it be to do the interview, be offered the slot, and turn it down?
There's not enough information here, really: does the school coordinate these pseudo-internship offers? Are they offers presented to everyone in the school's program -- it sort of sounds as though it was offered specifically to you (and the other person who'd be competing).
I'm not saying this is my final answer, but does it seem possible to do the first choice and be so good at the low-level stuff that you can edge into more interesting things?
What's the opportunity cost of doing it? Would you be passing up the chance to do something else you might like better? Does the program take up a lot of time that you could otherwise be putting to better use?
Because if the opportunity cost is not great (and assuming that the organization's screwups in this process have not huge enough to diminish your opinion of the place, keeping in mind that typos do happen, and there's no way that an employer is held to the same standard as an applicant), I'd say go for it. You'll meet people there and get to know them, and find out about the opportunities for doing the kind of work that you really want, and hopefully make a good impression; eventually when a more desirable opportunity comes up they'll remember you.
I like parsimon's Option 2, but I also appear to be on a cynical streak today.
What's the opportunity cost of doing it?
Chuckle. "Doing it." Snicker.
221: Unless this involves using a captive bolt gun or something really unpleasant, go with the foot in the door. Try to stick your foot in far enough that people will remember your name without thinking "the dude who spilled toner everywhere."
(The above assumes a young person with a thin work history.)
Sorry, I got caught up watching a movie and stepped away from the computer.
Like all of these situations, some detail has been left out. Also, I was kidding about taking the typos seriously.
It's the program that makes the arrangements, trying to do what they can to get people's preferences. So I haven't had any contact with anyone outside of the program.
The opportunity for free labor thing is almost certainly true, since I think under normal situations they would have just said no outright. They (erroneously, I think, as does my program) think that my program is not really a great match for them; in any case, they usually take interns for months-long projects if they take anyone at all. It appears that they did put some time into trying to come up with a way to have something to offer us, but as I say, the benefits look pretty one-sided from this distance.
The organization is large enough that it has divisions, and it's not clear that getting a foot in the door of this division will get me any further towards any other division. From the sound of the offer, there's not a lot of chance of even seeing the people in the other areas. What this division does is actually pretty great, though, but not what I was asking for.
Also, I don't know that much about the background of the other person in my program, but the offer seems pretty tailored to my previous experience. The problem is, and there's no way to show it on the resume (and there wasn't a cover letter involved), I'd really like to branch away from that experience. Which is why I specifically chose organizations that do things other than what I've done. I'm a bit concerned about being typecast for work I'm not settled on committing to when it comes time for me to be on the real market next year. If all my experience is along the same lines, fewer paths will be (potentially) open.
The problem is, and there's no way to show it on the resume (and there wasn't a cover letter involved)
You can pretty much write whatever you want on your resume. I have one that mentions my "Batman" collection and one that doesn't.
The organization is large enough that it has divisions, and it's not clear that getting a foot in the door of this division will get me any further towards any other division.
That is a bigger issue.
229.1 is screwy. How exactly are you going to show that on a resume? Perhaps a little asterisk next to the relevant items, and a note at the bottom saying "* Now want to do something else"?
230: I'd read 228.last wrong. You can't say that on a resume.
It occurs to me that I might be able to negotiate this to a for credit thing (which would be marginally acceptable, given door opening possibilities) which would make it a slightly longer project, and then take my observation elsewhere. Or, they'll just take the other student. I have some doubts about their ability to hire real employees in the near future, anyway.
I think writing this out and hearing people's comments has pretty much convinced me that as far as the observation goes, I should take my chances on trying to get my second or third choices. Both those places do things that I don't have experience with, but want to try out.
228: Well, how about this. You say you want to branch away from the area in which your past experience has been: there's no time like the present.
In light of the fact that you've specifically chosen to be in a program that allows you to branch out, and are looking at organizations that might offer that possibility, that's your story, and you're sticking to it. That's the narrative.
I likely know nothing about your field of interest, so it may be that this sort of thing is nearly impossible to do, but I suppose I can relate a small tale: in grad school at some point, at a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of my department's chairman, I was talking to a prof. from another department about my increasing interest in courses in her department, saying that my own department wasn't really inclined to let me do what I wanted to do, and she announced (we were all slightly wine-infused) that I should just ask, in fact, insist. Say so, firmly! Make demands, even! If you're good, they'll accede. She turned to my dept. chair standing nearby and said, "Amirite, Jerry, aren't I right?" He blushed, paused, and nodded: Yeah.
The point is just that if what you're in danger of being typecast into is not what you want, move away from it. Especially if that first choice organization has divisions that don't allow for much cross-division movement.
And ... on preview, I see that I didn't need to say all this.
96
Also, Roosevelt HS is in Nassau County, not NYC .
There are lots of Roosevelt High Schools. If you had bothered to read the link I gave, you would have realized that this one is in NYC. See here .
And ... on preview, I see that I didn't need to say all this.
9 times out of 10, I don't even have to hit preview to know that there is no need to say what I am about to say.
There are lots of Roosevelt High Schools.
How that must gall you, James.
Middle of the road types are probably happy with high school names. There are a bunch of Central Highs.
236
How that must gall you, James.
I have nothing against Theodore, the Roosevelt for which this particular school is named.
A colorful description of the NYC school custodian system can be found here .
I have love and RESPEK for james b. shearer.
239: I have nothing against Theodore, the Roosevelt for which this particular school is named.
James B. Shearer: Objectively pro-Czolgosz.
||Speaking of "why not", I am about to board a plane so as to have a date this weekend...|>
I'm about to plane a date made from a board. Soon, I'll sell my wooden calendars on Etsy.
242: Warning! This is a sign you might be in lovelovelove.
Have a great time!
I got bored with plain dates, but I can't think of anything to wrap them in that's not bacon.
Heebie, what came of your meeting with the Provost and/or Colleague? Is the situation now more complicated or less?
I didn't hear back from him before I left yesterday, but just checked my email and we're meeting Monday. So I can just squirm until then.
I got bored with plain dates, but I can't think of anything to wrap them in that's not bacon.
I'm appalled, Stanely. Just because your date is plain, you think you need to wrap her up in something? I'll admit bacon is a good choice, but let her personality lead the way, for god's sake.
Can someone coin a phrase along the lines of "Two wrongs don't make a right", except for when two people make consecutive puns on the same word in opposite directions, so that it gets back to the original meaning? Because it doesn't make it right.
Two consecutive uses of a word, or words, each of which plays on the fact that the word, or words, sound either the same or similar to another word, or words, that have a different meaning than the word used, the second use of which reverses the roles of the words, or two sets of words, in the first use, is like totally lame.
I'm working on the punchiness.
"Never cross the phonemes?"
Double-secret reverse phonemes doesn't make it right.
A word in the hand is worth the exact same word in the bush boy, heebie's mean, isn't she?
Don't shoot the messenger, now.
256: You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm punny how, I mean punny like I'm a Stanley, I annoy you? I don't make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' annoy you? What do you mean punny, punny how? How am I punny?
1. Cut three medium bananas, not too ripe, into slices about 1/2 cm thick
2. Halve and stone and equivalent quantity of fresh dates.
3. Layer in a bowl starting and finishing with a layer of banana, so that you have at least two or three layers of each.
4. Pour light cream over, so that it fills all the interstices and comes up to the top of the fruit, but not much more.
5. Refrigerate overnight. It will set to the consistency of soft candy.
6. Die happy.
258: should I eat it first?, or would it ruin the whole experience?
I dunno. These "the state regs are ridiculous" sounds like the first step in going all Rick Parry about things. After that it's downhill all the way to Glenn Beck isn't really so bad.
