Posts made by Aria

So I haven't taken a French class in, like, fifteen years but please excuse me while I go cry in a corner.

Also, if you're learning French and want to sign up, you can do so here.

Okay, I need a reality check here.

Interview was on Thursday. I sent my thank you note about an hour later, with an attachment of something I made when my department was having a similar to problem to one they mentioned.

Since then, both interviewers have replied to my thank you note - which is not something I've ever experienced before - saying how nice it was to meet me. One told me to let her know if I have any questions.

That's a really good sign, right? I'm not overanalyzing and looking for signals that aren't there?

@herja said in RL Sads:

Job hunting in a pandemic. The rejection has been brutal.

Did you apply for that posting at my company? You should!

....Well, cool. Looks like I'm reporting my manager's immediate peer on our sister team for using a racial slur in writing, in front of two people that it would apply to, and hope that HR keeps it anonymous.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME.

@auspice said in The Work Thread:

@aria said in The Work Thread:

@ganymede goddammit, let me be excited about one thing in 2020

have the kind of confetti you won't find in your bra three days later

EMERGENCY confetti.

@ganymede goddammit, let me be excited about one thing in 2020

@aria said in The Work Thread:

So I just applied for an internal positing at my company.

Into the exact role and department that I've been eyeing up for four years. Under a leader I really like, and whose boss I really like. I've applied for it twice before and the interviewer who'd been pretty clearly using me as a filler candidate for predetermined hires has since left the position, and I've since developed a stronger skillset, job background, and started an MBA.

Guys.

Guys.

....Can someone please bring me a Xanax and a paper bag or something?

THEY'RE INTERVIEWING ME NEXT THURSDAY HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT.

I finalized this stupid p-chart and case analysis for my process management class. It is done. Finished. Submitted.

And I swear to Christ that if anyone makes me calculate the values for a two-tailed or a null hypothesis ever again, I am going to punch them right in the junk.

Except probably not, because I'm taking statistics next semester. Please excuse me while I go cry in a corner.

@derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I never realized how different they looked and how much they had aged until I went all the way back to the beginning and it was like 'holy shit.'

I didn't start watching until about..... two years ago, at the recommendation of a co-worker? And even so, whenever I see anything from the first few seasons, I go a bit wobbly-eyed trying to process that.

But. BUT. If you like the Supernatural soundtrack, there's an entire massive playlist of it on Spotify. I was raised on classic rock, so the roadtrip soundtracks were definitely part of what generated my soft spot for this show so damned fast.

@derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Double post because:

Licensing

I recently decided to go back and watch Supernatural from the beginning because Netflix and hey why not, I can binge the whole show.

Except I kept thinking something was off.

And when I got to Faith, in Season 1, there is a certain song playing at a certain moment that very much sets the tone. Those who know the show know what I'm talking about.

Except in the Netflix version it's an entirely different song and I have no idea what the fuck that is supposed to even be.

That song is set to one of the most memorable moments in Supernatural, and to not have it with the shot is a goddamn crime. The soundtrack to the original seasons was the best part.

ETA: For those who don't mind spoilers, it's this scene. How can you switch that song?

Oh, god. Sam and Dean are babies. BABIES.

@tributary See, all of that sounds entirely reasonable to me. I don't mind if a class is hard work. I don't mind if a professor is a harsh grader. I don't even mind all that much if a professor is almost entirely inflexible.

I do mind when professors don't communicate their expectations, put it on students to guess what it is they want, and then punish their students for guessing incorrectly.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, JUST TELL US WHAT YOU WANT.

@auspice

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Who provided a cut-and-dry syllabus (really, there is no need for cutesy shit with a syllabus: there's a reason there's a formula. it works and people understand it).

@Ganymede

That's pretty much exactly what's going wrong in my class - not so much the syllabus specifically, as ours are standardized for each course in my program, so much as just setting clear guidelines.

Based on the commentary we receive back on our work, it's abundantly clear that our TA has very set expectations for how they want us to address items in various assignments. The thing is, he doesn't communicate that to us.

This is especially problematic for qualitative topics where the instructions are essentially, "Here is a case study. Read the case study, consider the problem they're having, and draw a conclusion. Support your conclusion with evidence from the case." That seems like an entirely reasonable assignment, save that what he really means is "Consider the problem they're having with X but which is not at all the highlight of the case study and which you've not been provided the data for. Analyze it using this methodology. Draw this very specific conclusion I have outlined in my rubric provided to my fellow assistants but not to you, then use assumptions that you have nothing to back up to prove this specific conclusion is correct."

The majority of the questions posted in our course forums are requests for clarifications on how we're supposed to even approach the assignment, because the class has figured out that if we don't harangue him for more specifics, answering the question as asked will invariably be marked as wrong.

If you ask open-ended questions, then you need to expect variability in the answers and grade based on whether they've presented logical, well-supported arguments. If you want your students to approach a problem using a specific lens, then just tell them that.

@auspice Yeeeeeeah, I might feel like more of a jerk doing this except, well....

This time my team got a fucking D -- a 68%! -- on an assignment where I ended up requesting a regrade with page numbers and direct quotations from our paper where were addressed items their comments claim we didn't so much as identify.

Sometimes even for assignments that I don't resubmit, I'll see my grade go up later without reply, announcement, or explanation. I'm guessing there's a very large proportion of assignments being submitted for review and after enough complaints, they just go in and adjust them for everyone.

If that's happening week after week after week, it seems like the problem is obvious. And it's probably not the students.

I think I've had one other professor/TA that pissed me off this much and that guy was just a legit fucking racist/misogynist jackass that I ended up having to report to the dean in a conversation that pretty much boiled down to "Y'all realize that sooner or later you're gonna end up dealing with a lawsuit because of this prick, right?"

So far, I have turned in six weeks' worth of assignments in my current course.

So far, I have had to contest four weeks' worth of grades.

And I don't mean in the whiny undergraduate way of "I don't like my grade! Give me an A!", but instances where the TA has released the answer sheet and their calculations has been objectively, mathematically wrong. Or where I've received short written essays back with comments that I had ten percentage points docked for not even mentioning something..... I addressed at two different points, including the causal analysis of how one came to be.

This TA probably hates me, but that's okay. I hate them, too.

@Auspice You get an upvote for the recruiter bit, not the ouchy bit.

In the meantime, if things get really bad, check into dental schools near you. Texas is fucking huge, so there may not be any right in your city, but...

I thought I needed a root canal once when I didn't have insurance and ended up at UPenn's dental clinic. The wait was an absolute pain in the ass, the appointment ridiculously long, and I fortunately only needed a filling. (Technically two, as I had somehow gotten a cavity in the crevice between two molars that spread to both?)

All in all, I went through their endodontic clinic, got a round of X-rays, passed through the regular clinic for the fillings, and got a cleaning. With a sliding scale based on my low-but-not-poverty salary? ~ $90.

I paid more than that last year for a fucking mouthguard with the "enhanced" level dental plan I have with my employer.

Worth the time to make the drive if things get urgent, IMO.