Departmental Politics
Politics is a necessary evil in our society. I've long since accepted this. Of course, one of the stipulations of my accepting of it is the fact that I won't live by politics. I'll play fair and be honest and do the things I need to do, but I'm not going to jump through hoops just because there are hoops there. Also, I won't allow myself to play any politics at all in arenas where politics aren't necessary.
Being a teaching assisstant means that I get all the stresses of a graduate student, all the stresses of low-ranking biology faculty, and only half the advantages of each. I don't even count as staff. I'm some freak abberation between faculty, staff, and student.
The primary stress I have always had as a student--graduate or undergraduate--is having to deal with the next semester's classes. I'm usually too busy to deal with it. There's never any exception to this. I take that back, this semester has been so busy that I'm about to go off the deep end. Trying to keep up with teaching, trying to keep up with my studies, hoping I can get some thesis work done, realizing that I've got nothing to write about at the moment, seeing myself desperately fighting sleep deprivation in the coming months.
Let me clarify a few more things. In order to keep my assisstantship, I have to stay enrolled in at least 6 hours worth of classes each semester. I've been a graduate so long though, I've only got one class left that I have to take, and it's only one credit hour.
Priority sign-up was two weeks ago. I knew when it hit and I knew when it had passed. I had bigger things on my mind. Now that I've finally gotten back on track with those things, signing up for classes had to catch up with me. I'm officially being nagged about it.
Nagged. Ugh. Sounds like petty crap to me. Petty crap runs rampant in the Biology Department (one of the two reasons I distance myself from it a lot). They don't call it petty crap though. Some people call it Departmental Bullshit in secret, but what they usually end up calling it is Departmental Politics. Did I mention I hate politics?
Screw it. I'll get signed up, not because of the politics, but because it's a requirement for me to keep getting paid. And I'm being given until the vague due date of November 23 to do it. Then what? You going to have a higher level secretary nag me? Everybody has better things to do than to deal with this. I really hope this is the last time. I don't want to do this anymore.
Being a teaching assisstant means that I get all the stresses of a graduate student, all the stresses of low-ranking biology faculty, and only half the advantages of each. I don't even count as staff. I'm some freak abberation between faculty, staff, and student.
The primary stress I have always had as a student--graduate or undergraduate--is having to deal with the next semester's classes. I'm usually too busy to deal with it. There's never any exception to this. I take that back, this semester has been so busy that I'm about to go off the deep end. Trying to keep up with teaching, trying to keep up with my studies, hoping I can get some thesis work done, realizing that I've got nothing to write about at the moment, seeing myself desperately fighting sleep deprivation in the coming months.
Let me clarify a few more things. In order to keep my assisstantship, I have to stay enrolled in at least 6 hours worth of classes each semester. I've been a graduate so long though, I've only got one class left that I have to take, and it's only one credit hour.
Priority sign-up was two weeks ago. I knew when it hit and I knew when it had passed. I had bigger things on my mind. Now that I've finally gotten back on track with those things, signing up for classes had to catch up with me. I'm officially being nagged about it.
Nagged. Ugh. Sounds like petty crap to me. Petty crap runs rampant in the Biology Department (one of the two reasons I distance myself from it a lot). They don't call it petty crap though. Some people call it Departmental Bullshit in secret, but what they usually end up calling it is Departmental Politics. Did I mention I hate politics?
Screw it. I'll get signed up, not because of the politics, but because it's a requirement for me to keep getting paid. And I'm being given until the vague due date of November 23 to do it. Then what? You going to have a higher level secretary nag me? Everybody has better things to do than to deal with this. I really hope this is the last time. I don't want to do this anymore.
posted by LEN! at 3:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home