What is the purpose of tenured professors if not to retain a living thread to the not-so-distant past?
Doesn't he have an assistant or something? Email to him or her.
Good idea. There's a building secretary.
...out-of-office reply from her. Hmm.
What was the last year in which "I don't have an email address" was an ethically acceptable thing to say, I wonder? 2004?
He's not even really a geezer. I just looked up his photo and figured out who I'm dealing with. Maybe in his 50s.
2,3 validates the behavior. Write a scathing e-mail to the dean and send him a paper copy.
3: Depends on context. It's still completely reasonable for anyone whose job does not provide computer access.
He signed up to be part of a group that meets with students. Guess how every part of this is being organized?
You're faced with this situation and think "what a royal pain in the ass this makes my life". Whereas I would think "Sounds like he's going to miss a lot of the meetings."
The head of my firm doesn't have a computer, and has less than no interest in learning to use one, but he's 83, so I tend to think that's allowed. He does have an assistant who prints out his messages and types/sends his replies for him, so it's possible for people to conduct business with him over email.
He's supposed to set up meetings with his group of students, and they keep asking me what they should do, since he hasn't been in touch, and they should have started meeting already.
I still don't have a cell phone.
How come?
11: why is this your responsibility? I'm confused. Can you just tell them to go knock on his office door?
9: But what do you fiddle with?! Wait. Don't answer that.
He does have an assistant who prints out his messages and types/sends his replies for him
This is common among very old lawyers, especially those who never really even learned how to type.
I'm the official instructor for a course which is basically "Book club!" These four are in his group this month. They've stopped by his office, emailed, etc, but haven't gotten ahold of him. They're supposed to meet four times and write a paper, and they get a grade for each group.
I wouldn't have a cell phone if it weren't required by my work, or if I had to pay for it myself. I hate talking on the phone, and do as little as possible.
OTOH, having the internet in my back pocket is great.
Jammies' dad types with two fingers, which totally cracks me up because he's a fancy oil executive.
This is the best part: when he needs to capitalize a letter, he uses one hand and types caps lock, the letter, and then caps lock again.
I don't love talking on the phone, but I love being able to meet up with whoever I have plans with, easily. Especially if you're somewhere unfamiliar.
because he's a fancy oil executive.
Weirdly, I guessed this about Jammie's dad/parents?! (In my mental narrative of how Jammies must have gotten his name. Maybe I am all wrong!)
I use about seven minutes a month on my voice plan.
Mostly stubborn curmudgeonliness, at this point. But originally because I don't like talking on the phone and *really* don't like being disturbed when I'm busy daydreaming or driving or grocery shopping with my iPod on and am unwilling to pay a multinational telecom conglomerate a big pile of money every month for the privilege. Also, I've vacationed with the husbands of my wife's sisters and noticed that they share this trait with Roberta that if something crosses their mind that they feel they need to relate (which happens approximately constantly), they start dialing. It was like vacationing in a Verizon retail store.
I hate to be obvious, but does he have voicemail? Call and leave a message.
that they share this trait
"They" being her sisters.
Weirdly, I guessed this about Jammie's dad/parents?! (In my mental narrative of how Jammies must have gotten his name. Maybe I am all wrong!)
I'm impressed! What's your narrative? (The narrative is almost certainly wrong because the biological father named him, and the adoptive father is the fancypants.)
heebie's going to feel bad when she finds out he died in his office two weeks ago.
The problem with not having a cell phone is that pay phones no longer exist.
24: I did that earlier, and haven't gotten a call back. I've tried him here and there, but haven't left a second message.
They've stopped by his office, emailed, etc, but haven't gotten ahold of him.
This plus 24 (which is obvious) makes it sound like he's just uninterested in participating. If he won't return calls or visitors, there's no reason to think he would reply to an email, even if he used email.
Maybe he knows how much time the rest of us waste online and wants no part of it.
I took a seminar in 2004 with a guest professor who was 70-something and had just started using email. He would type the date at the top of the message body, just as if he were writing a letter.
27: Ha! Well, it was something along the lines of oil exec/petroleum engineer stationed in Middle Eastern country ends up digging the name and passing it on. I have no real idea why I decided this!
but haven't left a second message
I would probably call him again just so that he couldn't claim he'd never gotten your message at all. Do the whole passive-aggressive thing: "Hi, this is heebie-geebie. I left you a message ten days ago, but since I haven't heard back from you, I wanted to make sure you got it. It was about the book club program..." etc.
This plus 24 (which is obvious) makes it sound like he's just uninterested in participating.
Right, but he signed up, chose a book, and four students have read that book and need to do some work and get a grade.
Well, it was something along the lines of oil exec/petroleum engineer stationed in Middle Eastern country ends up digging the name and passing it on.
Nope! Named after Jamaal Wilkes, some basketball player.
35 is probably a good idea. I actually only found out that he doesn't use email today, so the phone calls have all been today. But I'll leave another message on Monday, because I assume this will drag on.
If this is something that's going to screw over students and that you're nominally responsible for, I'd contact his department chairman or a relevant dean or something (I have no idea how colleges are organized). "I can't get in touch with him, and we need to confirm that he doesn't plan to teach this course he signed up for, and not punish the students who took it."
Make it someone else's problem.
Question for non-phone people. How do you network and connect with people and get jobs without calling people up? I hate talking on the phone, but I'm constantly being encouraged to be a bit more direct and call people.
HATE. I am very shy about calling people when I'm doing it on behalf of myself and not an organization. But, I need to whatever "get out of my comfort zone" if I'm going to get a new job.
Also, I find networking when transitioning to a new area excruciating. There's a list of people on my alumni website who are willing to talk to people, and I'm meaning to contact them but am somewhat terrified.
38: Is Monday not a holiday for you?
18.last I had a freshman here who did the same thing (hit caps lock, hit letter, unhit caps lock). My theory was that she learned to type on a phone.
I will do that.
I also have to deal with some stuff where I have to find out who the right people to talk to at the ABA are, and the info is not obvious on their website. Again, hate talking on the phone.
42: Nope. In fact, I don't think I've ever gotten Columbus Day off.
39 is probably the way to go. I'll wait till Monday, just in case he's just not in today, or something.
27: There are fewer philosophers around here than there used to be, but am I right that this is a Gettier problem on the hoof? Oudemia had a justified true belief that Jammies father was an oil exec, but her reasons were false?
Maybe Jammies Jackie can do a reverse-Jamaal and change his name to that as an adult.
48: Before he changed his name to Jamaal, he went by Keith, right?
How do you network and connect with people and get jobs without calling people up?
I've only had two jobs over the past 14 years.
For the last 3 years my office phone was incomprehensible to me. I could never get a dial tone on it and never figured out how to use the voicemail. It had weird blinking lights whose meaning remained inscrutable to me. People called my cell or used Skype. Maybe a decade from now there won't be any landlines?
I've only had two jobs over the past 14 years.
Because of careless dripping.
51: Yes, you're right of course. UCLA back in the day. I knew he had changed it, and after looking it up, "Jackson" was not quite adding up for me. Mild cognitive impairment for $20 Alex.
Speaking of people who don't grasp new technology, we had a billing clerk who was only 24 and yet he would print out all the emails for matters where he had to complete a task and would then throw out the paper when he completed the taste. He didn't last long.
He also through that the "print screen" process meant printing a page and using the scanner to create a pdf of the printed page.
56: Try to get him to hold the screen of a laptop to the bed of a scanner to print screen.
Does it seem like people are getting worse on the phone, despite everyone carrying one around with them all the time? I've always hated talking on the phone, especially if it wasn't going to involve any sex at some future point, but it seems like more and more of the people I talk to on the phone are just as reticent and awkward as me. Hmph.
At the stock brokerage we had quite a few brokers who refused to use email, and made their assistants handle everything. Also, in every large branch office, there seemed to be one superannuated broker whose routine consisted of coming in promptly at 8, saying hello to everyone, glancing over the WSJ, and then putting his head down on his desk and sleeping until lunch, after which he would come back to the office for maybe one brief meeting, and then leave before 3. Nice work if you can get it.
How do you network and connect with people and get jobs without calling people up?
I'm not a wizard at this myself, but sometimes attending seminars and conferences where there are people to bump into can work, and then you can bridge your way to a conversation through a follow-up e-mail or two.
For the last 3 years my office phone was incomprehensible to me. I could never get a dial tone on it and never figured out how to use the voicemail. It had weird blinking lights whose meaning remained inscrutable to me. People called my cell or used Skype. Maybe a decade from now there won't be any landlines?
My current department doesn't provide office phones at all, as part of their response to the dismal UC budget situation.
How do you network and connect with people and get jobs without calling people up?
So, I just networked my way into basically my dream job, and urple's 41 (email for lunch or coffee) was how I did it. Once or twice it was "email for phone call for lunch." I would feel very odd making an unsolicited phone call, even to someone I know, about job-search-related activities.
61: yup, they took my phone a couple of years ago. I don't miss it at all, though there have been a couple of occasions when it would have been useful.
I don't miss it at all
Me neither! In fact, I expect the not-having to be something I miss next year.
I would feel very odd making an unsolicited phone call, even to someone I know, about job-search-related activities.
All these networking advice materials out there will suggest that you call people. I can only assume the advice was written pre-email.
stationed in Middle Eastern country ends up digging the name
I once knew an Algerian guy named Djamel who didn't like me very much. He liked me even less after I accidentally (but persistently) called him "Jamaal", because apparently that means "camel" in Algerian Arabic. (So it was explained to me by another North African, anyway, who couldn't suppress the snorting and giggling.)
[It may be the case] that this guy [is hard to work with].
So, I just networked my way into basically my dream job
Congratulations emdash!
I am honestly curious how those of you who deal with sensitive or confidential information live without regular phone calls. I use e-mail like you wouldn't believe, but there is a substantial minority of topics that I would never put in writing no way no how. (And many of them are not specific to my job -- I'm thinking, for example, of a confidential conversation with a board member of an organization that I'm nominally a member of, about a staff member of that organization.)
67: you have a confidence in your pseudonymity I find both laudable and terrifying.
69: I use a dedicated classified network for that. Only Bradley Manning has figured out how to fuck me over.
I mostly find it terrifying in this particular case.
71: of course I mean: for notifying people of the double secret results of their double secret probations
70, 72: Sadly, I agree with the two-named boys on this, and as not-your-counsel I advise you to redact.
73: My "double-secret" in the other thread without seeing the double "double secret" in this thread.
47: Would be a bit of a borderline case, I think, because her belief was arguably not all that justified to begin with, i.e. her reasons were weak.
Should I really redact? I mean, this guy can't check his fucking email.
That's what he wants you to think.
I would. Whoever told you would be six kinds of screwed if it got back to the guy.
And your anonymity is worse than mine, which is saying a lot.
77: it's not about him, really. People tend to get very upset when that kind of news gets out through the wrong channels at the wrong time. Can lead to more work for a certain overworked segment of our commentariat, etc.
80: Is it really? Like, I drop more personal clues than the average bear?
77: Not *him*, but other more Internet-savvy people who might have knowledge of the situation or at least enough to put two and two together.
In some ways I feel so distantly located on the edge of the land down here sometimes, and it feels unfathomable that anyone would discover my secret news tether to the rest of the world. This is probably because I'm naive and haven't had enough bad luck yet.
Should it be completely redacted?
Speaking of geezers, or rather, of the kids these days, word is that one of the banes of high school disciplinary policies these days (along the lines the old-skool "No chewing gum in class, no passing notes in class") is: kids texting in class with the phone in their pocket, one hand in pocket, texting one handed. In the pocket.
Apparently this looks sort of like they're either jingling silent change or masturbating or signing to themselves.
REALLY? People can do that? Text one-handed, in a pocket, without looking? I'm stunned.
83: Woman math prof at a pretty closely described geographical location gets you most of the way. When you throw in the name of the children's book you just published...
Apparently this looks sort of like they're masturbating.
Which, to be fair, would also present disciplinary problems.
To be fair, I've been pretty cautious about keeping the name of the book unassociated with Heebie-Geebie. But there are probably a dozen other identifiers.
REALLY? People can do that? Text one-handed, in a pocket, without looking? I'm stunned.
People can type without looking at a keyboard, can't they?
Now, reading texts without looking, that's tougher.
83: Aside from people who use their actual name, I'd say you drop the most clues.
Also you've mentioned being the only person in the universe with your first name.
I have gotten embarrassingly busted by saying things about people who didn't know about the blog, who happened to follow a link to the relevant thread and recognize me from biographical scraps in that thread. (It's actually stuff I would have said to their faces without meaning to be hostile in the slightest, but they were really offended.)
Heebie, I'd redact the whole comment.
I'm really not worried about online people figuring out who I am; I'm vaguely worried about real life people figuring out who else I am.
My big fear used to be that everyone would find out how much time I waste. But since Facebook, it's become an established trope that everyone wastes as much time online as they want to, so it's not a character flaw in quite the same way.
Also I've said some hugely incautious personal things, but I have a deep trust in the vastness of the archives, and the boringness of wading through the archives looking for incautious things someone said one day.
People can type without looking at a keyboard, can't they?
Yeah, I know, and people can play the piano without looking; and obviously the kids are doing this, so it's doable. It just seems a step beyond touch-typing, in which the keys are actually roughly fingertip sized, and you've got those little raised dot thingies on the F and the K keys so you can keep your fingers in the right place.
Anyway, it's like a whole new ballgame.
I guess the raised dot is on the J key, actually. I had to look at the keyboard.
95: Yeah, I got busted by RL, steakosphere friends who I hadn't realized ever read a blog -- they happened across a link to comment 300 or so in some thread where I was talking about them. (In a manner that I really failed to realize was offensive, I feel the need to say.)
98: non-touchscreen telephones typically have a raised bump on (I believe) the five.
Do you all have a statute of limitations on stupid comments? Like, a personal opinion on how far back in time it takes before a comment is really probably permanently buried?
101: Makes sense.
Actually, mine has a raised number 5. Huh. Never noticed that before.
I've never been able to stop with stupid comments for long enough to care about that.
87: as Stormcrow's attorney -- and as someone who's seen, firsthand, how something sort of like this situation can go very badly awry for all parties involved -- I am all but begging you to completely redact that comment. Seriously, change the name at the bottom of the comment to Pauly Shore and make a fart joke, heebie. Please, do it for Stormcrow.
105: BTW, did you send that letter to my neighbor on the right-of-way dispute? 'Cuz he and I kinda got into it tonight.
91: I think you've posted it on your other blog, which is linked from here. I'm probably an unusually compulsive link-clicker, but that's not much separation.
Hmm, I trust your memory over mine, but at some point I had the thought that I shouldn't.
The comment in question has now been diluted past the point of danger.
102: never. You can google stupid shit I said on the internet in 1991.
107: Actually, I just googled your site for it, and I think you're right -- you must have mentioned the name in an email. But still, the other biographical facts plus "just published a children's book" even without the title, is going to be unique, probably.
To be unbearably earnest, having Unfogged where everything I say is understood the way you all generally understand it is super important and valuable to me. If the price is the risk of being discovered, it's a risk worth taking for me.
(That said, I don't need to leave super stupid comments dangling about. I'm just talking generally.)
Yeah, when I realized I was wide open, I thought about it for a bit and decided I really didn't care that much. I'm not spilling secrets here, mostly.
110: The title was all over facebook. I felt like I had to promote the hell out of the stupid thing, or else I was betraying my mother, or something. I passionately hated all that self-promotion.
111: I value it as a safe space to discuss the specific details of handling my penis.
Today Jammies clarified that he dribbles all over his pants all the time. Just not due to the specific zipper yoga that Moby was describing.
I enjoy the fact that I could use trigonometry to describe those problems.
Also, I realized today that I cannot recall how to deal with logs and exponents. I just forgot without knowing I forgot.
118: depends how much your pants cost.
118: Check the blackboard, Moby.
Someone should tell the porn makers to add "natural log" references.
Wait. This started as a "natural log" joke. I should maybe sleep.
Got to get some rest because we are buying a new toilet tomorrow.
And the Cards beat the Phils. Someone make sure Witt is okay.