I have no desire to hear from you again.

I guess this blog has turned into more of my monthly rantings. Who reads it anyway other than my pretend grandmother who lives in a classy home in the Hamptons. This morning I logged on to blackboard to check up on my grades. I have been finished with finals for 3 days now. However, the Humanities TA (who is male and comments on rippling muscles) has yet to update the grades. He asked for us to email him with the scores of the assignments missing. In his words (actually paraphrasing here), "Since you claim to have turned in all assignments, you must have misplaced them when you turned them in." Ok, so I misplaced them in that ONE pile at the front of the room? Hum, maybe if you spent less time on the ripply muscles and more time on what you are paid to do, we wouldn't have this issue. Anyway, to my dismay, the missing scores have still not been updated; I email him last week. BUT, he was able to put up the scores to our final papers. My sweat, blood, and tears when into that paper. The result, a mediocre (acceptable) score with absolutely no justification for the score given. Tell me, Internet, why is it that a professor gets all the credit for teaching the class and determining the grades when it's the TA who is piddling around with the red pen and imaginary rubric? I am making a call to all professors to hand out a rubric with their assignments. If you have expectations, you best be telling your students what those expectations are. Grading does not have to be subjective.

In addition to the moronic TA, I have had to deal with the worst of the worst today at work. 'Girl 'A wanted to be reimbursed for $600 of traveling costs. We agreed to help her with that but she is required to show proof of purchase. She claimed she could not get a copy of a particular receipt. SO, I prepared a missing receipt affidavit, sent her an email asking her to come in to sign it, and basically made the procedure as painless as possible. She griped the whole time about how I didn't understand what was going on. Hum, listen girly, I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN COMPLAIN TODAY!

'Girl B' walked into my office and asked to see the dean. "Have you made an appointment? Is there a particular reason you need to see him?" Her response, "I just need to." Oh, you bet, let me run right in to his office and tell him to drop EVERYTHING. This one student needs to talk to you. Her reason for seeing the dean: she needed to take a final in our conference room. Yep, as the receptionist and the person that schedules the room, I could never have answered that question for you.

'Man C' comes in to the office all panicked. "Why is no one here for the meeting at 2?" Ok, calm down. I have never seen you before so let's start from the beginning . . . "What meeting?" Once again, no meeting was scheduled in the room that I schedule. I even asked him if a specific person was going to be in that meeting. He said, no. Then the associate dean walked out of his office and asked him the same question. Man C said, "Why, yes he is going to be there." WHAT?!?! Do I look that incapable?

And finally, 'Professor D' walked in and asked if anyone would be available on Monday to sign is ever so important grant proposal. I told him yes. His response, "Are you sure?" My response, "You caught me! No one will be here on Monday. In fact no one is here right now. This is just a hologram!"

I hope I don't lose my job.