1. It was brought by my office at 12:30 yesterday; I was not there. (Actually I was. But I was not there at 11:30 and when pressed, the person said he did remember there being a note on my door)
2. It was brought by at 6:45 am today and - gasp, horrors - I was not here.
I explained on #2 that I woke with a migraine (I did, again) and had to wait for it to go away for me to come in, but that I was here by 8 am, the normal start of my office hours.
I guess I am supposed to live in my office and just stay here 24/7 on the possibility a student might come by needing me. NO. They do not pay me enough for that.
it's still MY fault that the paper wasn't turned in on time. WHATEVER. I give up. There is NO pleasing some people and even being nice to some people doesn't work.
Whatever. It's after 1 pm and I still haven't had lunch. I am not happy. I will grade it but I am NOT happy.
***
Edited to add: I realize part of the problem in this is that I'm too good at taking responsibility. I realized, as I was driving to get lunch, that the person in question was trying to make ME responsible for the paper not being in - because I assigned something "too hard," because I wasn't there to let him into the lab to work, because I was at lunch yesterday and not in at 6:45 am this morning.
And, dammit, it's hard enough for me to carry MY OWN LOAD of responsibility without having someone slough theirs off on to me. So, NO. NO I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS.
I will grade the paper - heck, I already have, did it while waiting on lunch - and turn in the grade he earned and figure that the lesson this has all taught me is that sometimes being nice doesn't work. I was actually kind of rude to the person today - I wasn't in a good mood, I was tired and hungry and didn't want to hear tales of woe about how hard the project was and how long it took to do it. So I was actually kind of short with the person and said, "Yes, I was not in at 6:45. I woke up with a migraine and had to wait for it to lift before I could come in." And that is true. That actually got him to quiet down. Perhaps he's so mired in his own problems that it doesn't seem possible other people could have problems as well?
Whatever.
I went out to lunch at the local Asian place. (I say "Asian" because while most of the food is Chinese, they have a few Thai dishes). It was 1:30 so it wasn't busy and they let me sit there and grade even after I'd finished eating.
And I got a fortune cookie. And dang, I hope this fortune comes true:
(And yes, I know about the old ribaldry about "...in bed" or "...between the sheets" or, in the Regular Show slight euphemization, "...in the back seat of a car")
One of the things that frustrates me about teaching is that you always hear when you screw up, you also always hear when someone's unhappy even though it's not really your fault, but you so seldom hear when you do something well. And I know it's a mark of adulthood to be able to survive without positive reinforcement....but I'm not that much of an adult.
4 comments:
If I had arrived, and there was a note on the door, I would have waited to prove I had been there. OR left a note of my own. The fact that this person didn't smacks of trickery.
HUGS!
I had a student worker who simply did not come to work most scheduled times. He said he had to sit in the hospital with a succession of relatives and close friends. When he was at work, he apparently snooped in the faculty files and told other students what he'd learned. He later had the gall to ask for a letter of recommendation. It was very hard for me not to try to be accommodating, but I suggested he ask someone who could write him a good letter.
How do you know the student isn't a lying liar? Couldn't they have slipped it under your door or left a note if they were there? Sounds fishy to me.
Wow, what a complete crock! I'm sorry you had to grade this student's paper. I wish the administration would back you up in not accepting it.
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