Note from the trenches

[rolanni]

Dear Pwrs At Bee:

If you want a standardized letter crossing all depts, then somebody's gotta be writing that letter, and getting it approved, and then sent out to all us what'll need to be using that same standardized letter in our daily labor.

Wishes ain't piglets, and "oughta be" ain't "is."

Respectfully &c,

Me

Comments

[kay-gmd.livejournal.com]

AMEN!!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"Make it so!"

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

If I didn't have the sinking suspicion that this is a global, rather than local, property, I'd accuse you of working at the school I work at.

(Icon appropriate if you substitute "administration" for "students")

[cailleuch.livejournal.com]

Here someone writes the letter without consultation nor informing anyone of its existence. The letter is then posted to a folder on the server to which no one has access. Then you are literally yelled at when you don't use the letter. Something like that?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

That's a nice twist. And! Admin gets to score the same foul twice.

In our case, no one wants to supervise the clerical (or whatever the correct word for "clerical" is at the moment) staff, but everyone agrees that local (aka departmental) supervision cannot trump all, because that would be, um, wrong. Or something. Which leads to a lot of people who nominally could be supervisors, but would rather leap from the top of the science building, making an awful lot of unfounded assumptions when one is forced (because one has unfortunately exhausted all the other, usual, channels) to ask a question.

Results: question unanswered, waters muddied, staff aggravated -- and on a path to inventing one's own answer, since...well.

[cailleuch.livejournal.com]

Yuck! We just have a dictator for a dean who even micromanages the poor program secretary. There is however a clear decision maker if you can ever find out what the decisions are.