Grass is greener

I'm going through one of those periodic times when I contemplate the other careers I might have contemplated, and because things are "challenging" (to put it politely) at work right now, they all look more appealing than what I'm doing now.

Part of it was, yesterday, at 8 am I had a student come in asking about the exams given Friday in my absence. Did I have them graded yet?

Now, granted, he had no way of knowing I was busy all day Saturday. But what I "heard" at that moment was "WHY don't you have our exams graded yet?"

I admit I was less than cordial about it. I try very hard to have stuff graded and returned on the next class day, but I'd hope this would be seen as a special case where I needed extra time. (Also, I had just realized that I have to write a Biostats exam this week, which takes an enormous amount of time).

And then I had a student stop me in one of my classes of the day, and ask me the definition of something I had just spent 20 minutes going over in detail. The other students looked puzzled - like "why is he asking that now?" - so I don't think it was that I was unclear; this is also someone whose attention seems rarely to be on class material.

And then I got fifteen (or so it seemed) e-mails asking or telling me to do certain things - reports that "need" writing, a volunteer "opportunity" this Saturday (and I was going to take Saturday off to recuperate!) and on, and on.

And I also am dealing with someone who is, to use the politer form of the phrase, an attention hound. Someone who likes to stir the pot because "trouble is a form of attention." And of course, this person gets loads of attention, gets people jumping to his defense when someone "calls" him on his bad behavior.

And it just makes me tired and sad. Because it's the troublemakers who get attention. The nice little cogs who work in the machine, who keep things going, no one ever notices them. (Yes, I admit it: I envy it when people get attention sometimes. Because there are times I could use some attention, or some help, or at least an 'attagirl,' and it's hard - no, impossible - for me to ask for it. I don't know how to ask for it without looking whiny and needy.).

Yesterday I got up at 4:30. I finally got home for the night at 9 pm. Dinner was the few leaves of salad I could rescue from the bottom of the bag. (I had been thinking of running through the Taco Mayo drive-through when I ran an errand late in the day, but when I went by there, there were 12 cars in the drive through and I decided it was so not worth waiting.)

I'm in "survival mode," where what gets done is what HAS to get done, and there's really no time for fun or relaxation. This may keep up (unless I INSIST on taking Saturday and Sunday afternoon off this week) until Thanksgiving.