It's Time for the Airing of Grievances!

arrrghmatey

People shortening words to sound all hip and cool i.e. "totes" and "cray-cray." I have a friend who is 37 years old and she is always exclaiming "That's so cray-cray!!" as if she were 16 years old. Very….very…annoying.

tuarceatha

@cu97tiger If it feels right, I can't knock it.

lilacck28

I'm late to the party but... @phira @futuremrshistorian

In the last class I TA'ed, I taught one of the final classes without the Professor there (she usually was there, I was not the professor on record.) She was out because her mom had just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Anyway, it was a class before the "final." Since it was a studio art class, the final was a final drawing project. They also had a presentation to give about any painting/ drawing they saw in a museum, and about the artist who made it. Basically, the easiest presentation ever. They also had to hand in their completed sketchbooks. They were supposed to be doing drawings everyday throughout the semester, so by the end of the semester the sketchbooks would be complete and collected. The sketchbooks had already been collected for the midterm. All of these assignments were in the syllabus. The students were occasionally reminded, but not often. But... it was in the syllabus.

 Anyway, they kind of staged a coup. They were up in arms over the final project being due so soon, and that they had the other projects as well. They said it wasn't fair, that they have other work to do to for other classes and they don't have enough time.

 I was taken aback...  first I told them I could not change the date for them, and that I would bring their concerns to the attention of the professor, but that they should not anticipate anything being changed because these projects were made clear to them at the beginning of the semester. And then they just complained more and more to me/ got really angry and argumentative.

 I was not pleased. I was like "would you argue with another professor that your final exam was too close to when your other papers were due? No. You wouldn't. Or that the date of a final paper should be moved so you could finish work for other classes? No. You wouldn't. There is work to do in this class and expectations of completing that work to pass, just like in every other class you have." I was royally pissed that they were trying to get out of work/ treating the class like a throw away. It was an intro drawing class and it was damn easy compared to what I had as an undergrad, so I wasn't very sympathetic. Then they tried saying "no! We love this class! We just need more time to make our drawings actually good!"

Anyway, I told the professor what happened. I told her what students were the main complainers/ instigators. The professor emailed the main student back and was like "I expect you to apologize to her (aka, me.) Your actions were unacceptable. I hope Lilacck still want to teach after this!" The professor emailed me the email after the fact. It was definitely a harshly worded email.

I taught the next class without the professor again, and the student came to me crying, kind of hysterical. She was a freshman. She talked about how stressed she was, and her grandma dying, and that she didn't mean to be mean to me. I was appalled. 1. I felt terrible and 2. I didn't know what to do!

I just told her in the future to remember to act professionally, and that if she has concerns or troubles to bring it up to the professor individually (that most would be happy to offer extensions, etc),  not in front of the class, and not to argue with the TA or professor in front of other people. And that she shouldn't let herself become the mouthpiece for the class just because they were all complaining about being stressed. That finals are stressful for everyone and freshman year is definitely an adjustment period.

Ahhhh teaching. I miss it!!

phira

@lilacck28 WOW! That is really ridiculous. I always tell students to come to me if there's something going on in their personal life that's going to affect their performance in the class (death in the family, serious illness) so we can figure something out!

I've been finding that it's been getting worse and worse, but so many college students feel entitled to only have, like, one big exam or project per week or something. We get so many students complaining that they did badly on our exam because they had another exam that evening, or the day before ... it's like, "Look, part of college is learning to check the syllabus and study in advance."

teddygirl9

I'm annoyed with myself for being annoyed at BF at not proposing yet lol. I got a little crazy a few weeks ago and have tried to relax and chill out a bit (lot).

 

I'm also annoyed at him for being so bad at Christmas. Like, he just fails lol. We had the day off so went shopping, and he made me pick out shoes to buy. I narrowed it down to 2 pairs and left so he could pick/pay. Then later, we were talking about how much we spent that day and he told me EXACTLY how much he spent at the mall (shoes were the only thing he bought), which told me which pair it was. And even after all of that, he left the bag downstairs by the sofa (since Friday). *sigh* He still wants to wrap them too. I always try SO hard at christmas to get people surprising gifts that they will like, and I feel like he didn't try at all. But I know he got more, (and the shoes ARE really nice) so we will see come christmas.

[Deleted User]

@lilacck28 - I've been out of touch all day, but...OMG.  I am SO sorry that happened to you.

It's been my experience that sometimes freshmen just freak out for no reason...it's like they panic because they're scared, and act out because of that.  Still...I can't imagine behaving that way, ever!

lilacck28

Yeah, I was really.... flabbergasted. It wasn't THAT long ago that I was a freshman, and so I definitely knew where they were coming from (in terms of being stressed, in terms of "oh no! I forgot I had to do that! I should have checked the syllabus more often!) And I was in grad school, so I understood being frustrated when professors were less than organized.

BUT I guess I was a very conscientious student, so if I was stressed I tended to (after some initial quiet complaining to friends and parents) blame myself, and just buckled down. And I ALWAYS knew to treat Professors and TA's with respect-- because, decency, and also-- they were grading me and I hoped to form good relationships with them!

And their complaints about "we're not art majors! we have other classes to do!" really pissed me off. I was a double major.. I knew all about managing the different forms of stress associated with different types of classes.

Art classes don't usually have papers or tests (some do) but they require a LOT of time. I spent a lot more time doing work for my art classes and finishing a painting, for example, than I did writing a 15 page paper for Politics (even if it was an A quality paper.) I spent more time working on my undergrad art thesis (a group of paintings) than I did on my undergrad politics thesis! And at that time, I hadn't yet chosen to pursue art over politics (I was contemplating political theory PhDs and Law School).

Writing a paper was more immediately stressful for me, taking a test was more immediately stressful for me, but I could bang those out pretty quickly. It's hard to bang a drawing out and be happy with it... particularly if you are NOT good at drawing (which, let's be honest, most kids taking a drawing class for a gen-ed requirement are not.) Students are always surprised by the amount of time and effort an art class takes, even if it doesn't normally stress them out the way their other classes do.

And I NEVER told my science professors "Hey! I'm an Art and Politics double major! Your class shouldn't have so much work... I'm not a Bio major!" I never even thought it! What a BS thing to say!

I hope it was a good learning experience for her and the rest of the class... it was definitely a good one for me! It taught me that I need to care less about being liked by my class, that it was more important to teach them to be decent human beings/ students.

Shelly1324

My grievances at the moment are with BF's parents and how they treat him. For Christmas they got him a lamp (that they know his cat is going to end up breaking) and a gift card to a restaurant, while his siblings got dramatically better stuff. His one sister (who's moved away from home countless times, only to return again)was given multiple books, and movies, while his brother (the same brother who moved out earlier this year randomly without telling anyone) got at least 5 seasons of his favorite shows. His oldest sister got tons of gifts as well. His oldest sister also being the one who got the 80K wedding that was a train wreck with no power, and moving out into the house next door (parents footing the bill for a lot of it since her and new FI can't afford anything with their almost non-existent jobs). 

I understand that not everyone is going to get the same things but BF keeps getting screwed over by said parents. They paid for his oldest sister's wedding and previously listed house. They also paid his youngest sister's college education to get a teaching degree (over 100k) and she decided that she no longer wants to do ANYTHING in the field of teaching/schools. They paid for his brothers education for a couple years before discovering that he dropped out and was just keeping the money for himself (BF tried to tell them all along his brother dropped out but they didn't believe him). BF's parents won't pay for any of his education now, he has to almost beg them to borrow money for books and can't get any tuition aid due to his mom making well over 100k last year.

Speaking of BF's mom I have some more grievances with her. She's been hardcore judging me for quitting my job a few days before Christmas. Sorry, but I'm not going to stay some place that forces me to work 45 mins (every shift) off the clock at the end of the night, then refuses to give me time off and threatens to fire me if I miss work. 

Oh, and I have grievances with my half-sister (who's like over 35 years old), my half-brother (also over 35), and my uncle. My father always told me what to do when he died(to help make the decisions easier on me). He wanted to be cremated and with no ceremonies. He passed away suddenly this year (I was 19). My father and mother never got married so the arrangements were left up to his children as he never left a will. My half-sister, half-brother, and uncle have made my life a living hell this past year. Now my half-sister decides to write me a letter and give me a tiny amount of his ashes (I didn't end up with anything of his, or anything to remember him by) then acts like she's doing me a favor. *rolls eyes*

Kaitgray89

I'm annoyed with my boyfriend for not yet proposing even though he has the ring. But I'm mostly annoyed with his sister in law. She married his brother and ever since the wedding she hasn't had anything to do with the family except to ask for money or someone to watch her kid. She told me her father in law(who has been happily married for 35 years) made the comment to not marry his son and instead stay with him. She is so ungrateful. I spent $40 on her wedding planner book last Christmas and she left it outside and it was ruined. Her in laws paid for over $3000 of her wedding because she said her mother would pay them back, now she wants to pay her mother back but not her in laws. I'm really just angry at how she treats the in laws, they let her live there without paying rent, and all she's done is stir up s*&$. This may not seem like much, but in reality it's just the straw that broke the camel's back.

lunardaydreaming

I don't have any "major drama", but here's my grievance: The program that I work in will officially become part of a bigger, more established program as of January 1st, although the new program has been managing us since the summer. The official change-over means that our budget will be taken over by the new program, which supposedly has more money. During our holiday party, our project manager hinted at how good, and valuable the work we did was, and how we weren't "getting rich" doing it (it's human services), but that that would hopefully change. So if we don't get freaking raises I'm going to be a little peeved. I am extremely grateful to be employed full time in my field, with excellent benefits, but we are overworked, working with caseloads that are absolutely ludicrous and unsafe (to the point where we can't provide the best quality of services to anyone because of how many clients we have), and have had no support as a staff. I think every single one of us deserves a raise. /rant