- If you get put on a new committee because of your new rank, they don't ask you when you can be there; they just tell you. If you're teaching at that time, too bad. You get to burn a research day coming to campus so that you can meet with someone and get up to speed.
- If you write a grant proposal, you will discover either an egregious typo or an unfinished sentence somewhere in the proposal--after the deadline and after you have turned it in.
- In this interview at the Chronicle, Camille Paglia has some good writing inspiration and some even better self-regard, with which she lights the paper and the interviewer on fire, I think. But hey, writers should be confident, right?
- Doodle polls have a "hidden" setting so that you can't see what other people have put in; did you know that? I wonder if it's so the person running the meeting can privately overturn the "most popular" date and time if it doesn't suit him or her or them.
- The best way to ensure a deluge of work is to sign up for something you want to do (the Iowa Writers Workshop MOOC), which will be entirely swept aside since you can barely keep up with what you are supposed to be doing.
- Too tired to work and in the mood for something with no thought to it at all? The Kitchenette's "Behind Closed Ovens" series has some funny stories and screens out anything disgusting.
- The guy who invented NoMoRoBo is a god and should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping those of us who still have land lines (because relatives) sane.
- You can have a "no email on weekends" policy, but if more than 30 emails from your collaborators pile up in a day, you may have to break down and answer them. Never Weaken is a Harold Lloyd comedy, not a phrase to live by.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Universal truths
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2 comments:
It seems to me that if you're constructing the doodle poll and you really don't want to meet at a particular time, you just don't include that time. I can see the argument for using bcc if doing the task by email (in the name of not piling up 30 emails in collaborators' inboxes), but I can't really see a legitimate use for the "hide" function in a doodle poll (well, maybe if you have a really fractious bunch that regularly flings around accusations of favoritism, cliques, etc., but then you've got a bigger problem which going with the majority on a doodle poll wont' really solve).
I had not heard of NoMoRoBo, but it's definitely an excellent idea (and, if I'm reading correctly, the result of a pretty cool government iniative). (But I'm still planning to get rid of my land line, because the only people who call me besides robo callers and debt collectors using really shady scare tactics on people who had the number at least a decade ago are verizon representatives trying to get me to switch to FIOS, which I will do, but only after I've dumped the land line, which I want to do anyway, and will presumably put them in the mood to offer me a good deal).
Contingent Cassandra--you're right, as always. Only include the times you want--makes sense.
That was/is the problem with a landline: only the scammers call you on it. NoMoRoBo deep-sixes those calls. I still have the landline for local charities and things like that, but I don't answer for anything else.
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