terrshee's Diaryland Diary

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Looking for Trouble

I think I'm looking for trouble. I have sent out two controversial e-mails this morning, and probably would send out another if I could just find the right subject.

I have opined that a very nice young woman who has been with the company for a few months may not be the right person to do one aspect of the job. She's fine at most stuff, but I think she is in over her head in this one rather important category and I don't think she will ever really be comfortable with it. Fortunately she's not really my concern or trainee, and I am sure others will treat her abilities with more understanding and better mentoring. But I confess I was sorely shocked at how little progress she'd made between the first and last times I worked with her in a lockup. This is one of those things you either get or don't, IMHO.

The second e-mail will get me in more trouble. I am once more advocating that we stop publishing a particularly professionally lame part of our website that is connected with a senior reporter. The thing makes no money and takes up way too many company resources and does not even have the benefit of enhancing our reputation. I've tried for nearly six years to make a success of this pig's ear and it isn't going to happen. I'm fed up and want out.

If I am ever Queen of Atlantia, a highly unlikely event, I will banish the combination of words that say: "I don't know why [insert name here] does not have a [insert award name here]," and also "Congratulations, it was long overdue."

The first I find irritating in the extreme. It implies that the speaker knows better than the Crown and/or the Order and that only a bunch o' morons could fail to see the worth of the candidate. Yet in most cases it is simply a matter of (bad) timing or (bad) behavior, and most of us know it full well. I know it is meant as a compliment, but I hate it nonetheless.

The second seems to me in some way to diminish the award and/or the recipient. Oh, here's your late payment, Wolfmumble, we were jerks not to give it to you sooner or you were such a jerk we couldn't manage it until you cleaned up your act. Please, let us preserve the illusion that the orders civilly advise the Crown, and that the Crown behaves with grace and dispatch.

I'm sure I've ranted on this before, but this past weekend and the subsequent posts on the various lists has reintroduced that burr under my saddle.

I'm still seething at my Stat prof, but we seem to have resolved the issue. I am now not currently a plagiarist according to her definition, and I am doing my best to hold my tongue (or typing fingers?) and just respect that she's the teacher and may run the class as she pleases. But there will not be a good evaluation for her at the end of the semester; the student's weak revenge. I could forgive her not knowing my utter integrity or being rigid and petty in the service of academic exactitude, but the poor phrasing on a lot of discussions questions is causing consternation to more than just me. How easy it is to justify snippiness.

10:41 a.m. - 2006-03-06
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