Hello, blog. I've been neglecting you again and I'm sorry. Life's been busy lately and, well, it's been hard for me to see the humor in things. Not to mention there hasn't been much time to take a simple idea and try to develop it into a full blog entry. No promises, but I'll try to do better.
Life's been kind of a drag of late, but it hasn't been without its surprises. Work has been really friggin' busy, as it usually is at the end of a semester. But everything seemed to hit at once this time and I can't figure out why. Actually I can. The usual housekeeping stuff I have to do at the end of a semester normally keeps be busy enough for a while, but this semester we had the extra bonuses of a faculty third year review, another faculty member starting the process for promotion and tenure, and a spousal hire for someone being offered a job in another department. It's times like these when an effective department head can offer leadership to get things done in a timely manner. Unfortunately, we lack that sort of thing here. I've said it before and I'll say it again: my boss is a nice guy, but he's a dink. I hesitate to use the term "empty suit," but I can't think of a more apt description. And as my boss is in his last year as head, I fully expect him to be "phoning in" his job as he writes more books while he can still use the department as a cheap marketing firm. The end result will be I'll wind up being the defacto head while only looking forward to a whopping $600 raise next year, which, after taxes and increased fees on campus, comes out to around $210. And I don't even get a kiss and dinner before I get screwed.
On the other hand, some of the faculty around here have been very kind to me. I get along quite well with them so that's often not a big deal. But what they did for Administrative Professionals Day was very cool, even if I think it was a bit too much. On the phone one morning a few weeks ago with one of our faculty members I was asked what I wanted for Admin Profs day. Jokingly I blurted out, "A Playstation 3." When the next question was how much they cost, I insisted that I was just kidding and that I'd have one of my own next year. And what should be delivered to my office a few days after April 23? Yeah, a Playstation 3. I work with some good people.
My family ancestry is three-quarters German and one-quarter Irish, and I'll gladly take the luck that comes with the one-quarter of my lineage. Sure, my life will get even busier over the next year but at least it comes with job security. And at least I'll have some shoot-em-up games on the PS3 to take my frustrations out with.
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