Shuriken

Blog,

It's been way too long. Not sure exactly how I got so terribly out of the habit, but I suspect I've been keeping my head down a lot lately. Since I work at a college, this time of year everyone is in a terrible mood that will continue to build for a few more weeks. The best way to dodge the bullets of academic contentiousness is just to stay low to the ground.

Even so, I've been grazed a few times. Late last week, I got an out-of-the-blue, scathing message from a very frustrated faculty member who couldn't find a particular name or address on our site. This is someone for whom I routinely perform time-consuming, nit-picky tasks, so his ungraciousness really took me by surprise. Oh, and the best part was that he copied a VP on the message, I guess so it would get me in "trouble." The old "I'm telling your manager" trick.

The punchline is that the VP wrote him back and pretty much said: thanks, jerk , but it's not her responsibility. Direct your angry ass elsewhere. Except he said it in a more eloquent, vice-presidential tone. It's nice to know someone's got my back.

Even so, the whole exchange came on the wrong day, and I proceeded directly to Def-Con 5 meltdown phase. I missed a meeting because I had to hide in my office and cry for an hour. Sometimes, I ask myself why I do this job, especially when probably 50% of the campus is always going to think I suck. The angry letter mentioned here is only one of many encounters I've had lately. Others, with actual ex-professors who used to mentor me and now think I'm an administrative stooge, have been much more disheartening.

I've always said I don't have a lot of ambition. I don't aspire to VP level, and not even Director level. I had been re-thinking that recently; maybe I could be at least a Director someday, and I would probably be good. But I don't know if I'm strong enough to take the daily beatings.

Today's pleasing word is shuriken.