Friday, December 19, 2008

Secret message to eager colleagues

To all those who are contacting me this week, when there is not one single administrative thing I am responsible for doing or can do until spring, about

--policy discussions that you want to have right now but that can wait until next semester
--procedures that you think ought to be discussed at length but can also wait until next semester
--handwringing about the terrible state of the economy in regard to certain cuts in the university budget
--hypothetical "what if?" scenarios for program development that will never come to pass (see previous point)
--whether I plan to be in the office next Wednesday to discuss any of the above

my answer is this:

--I am not going to deal with any of this right now.
--Chill out.
--Back away from the computer.
--Get a life.


If you don't, I will be forced to use the dreaded Annoying Autoresponse as a defense shield.

[Edited to add: Anything discussed or decided this week would have to be redone at the beginning of next semester anyway, because so many people are already gone. Having these discussions twice seems like a waste of time and effort, to put it mildly.]

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Add: attempts to convince me that we should do things I have already sworn and promised that I totally agree, we should do, could do, can do, must do, will do.

undine said...

Yes. And they can't be done this week!

Breena Ronan said...

I like the idea of elaborating on your autoresponse...make up something that you would like to be doing. "I'm out of the office this week, skiing in the alps." :)

undine said...

The made-up excuse would totally be part of it, Breena. I've settled for a huge amount of passive-aggressive not answering instead.