Geeky Mom

So, I’ve made my complaints as I see them from the staff perspective, but there are certainly ways that the staff also accentuate the divide. Some of my colleagues are with David Horowitz on the issue of faculty work and salaries. Some think that faculty only work when they’re teaching. Some think they get paid a ton of money. I can say that I make more than some of the incoming t-t faculty. They don’t understand the intense pressure of being on the tenure-track. They don’t understand that it’s not just that they may not have a job at this institution anymore, but their entire career as a faculty member might be over as a result of not getting tenure here. So I find myself educating folks a lot. I described faculty in a meeting once as independent contractors. It’s not that they don’t care about the institution, but until they get tenure, they often must put their own issues first. This may not be entirely accurate, but it was a metaphor most people could understand. I also describe to them the process of preparing for classes and doing research and explaining that Mr. Geeky often works until the wee hours of the morning writing and programming and writing again. And that this is typical. It’s also typical to work on the weekends.

It’s also true that we staff members sometimes aren’t as responsive as we could be. And sometimes we’re rude. We’re small. There’s one of me for 100 faculty. I also serve the staff (400) and students (1200). With those kinds of numbers, it makes sense that we get asked the same questions over and over again. I sometimes have to remind myself that before I put some good documentation and outreach in place, I got 250 Blackboard questions in one day at the beginning of a semester (and that was only e-mail, not phone calls). This year, that was down to about 20. I can deal with 20 and I should do so happily. Sometimes the 21st will put me over the edge though.

We often promise too much. We think it will only take us a minute or a day to do something and it takes longer. A problem arises or we get interrupted by more immediate problems and next thing you know, 3 days or a week can go by. We could be better at estimating how long something will take to do.

And, while I stated in my earlier post that many staff view their jobs as careers, as making a contribution to the educational mission of the college, many others see their jobs as just jobs. They come in at 9; they do what is required of them and then they go home at 5 and don’t think about it. There are days when I do that–and I’m very glad that I can–but most of the time, I’m thinking about things, reading things, writing about things that have to do with my work on my own time.

There’s no easy solution to these divisions and the longer I work at my current institution, the smaller the gap becomes, at least for me.

Okay, this is going to totally blow my pseudonym, but I’m going to point you to it anyway. We only did one take–which you can totally tell. We tried doing a second take, but we’re in a construction zone and they decided to start doing noisy stuff right as we got started, so in the interest of expediency and because of the snow, we just edited it a little and stuck it up.

So here it is.

I don’t expect to actually make money off of my little amazon thingy. I just thought it would be something fun to play with. The book I’m highlighting now was actually written by a guy in my writing group. It’s based on a story told to him by a Holocaust survivor. He’s also written a screenplay based on the book. It’s a really wonderful story and I know the guy and he’s a really great guy, so if you’re in the market for a good, short book, take a peek. This will probably be my only plug, unless my other friends start publishing–or if I do.

I realize this is a risky post topic considering my audience, but it’s something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while. This also may be a figment of my own imagination and/or unique to my insititution.

A while back, I mentioned that I felt like I was being treated like slave labor and this is the root of the faculty/staff divide as I see it. I have the good fortune of having known many faculty before I took this job through association with my husband who is a faculty member at the same institution. These people know I am an educated and thoughtful person, capable of understanding a research agenda and what it’s like to teach (having taught myself at the college level for nearly 10 years). I also have the good fortune of having worked with many faculty who didn’t know me before but who have gotten to know me and respect me for my competency and intelligence.

Still, my days are too often punctuated with rude requests that are often just barely within my job description. I’m asked to add students to Blackboard courses (something faculty can do themselves). I’m asked to print out Blackboard documents for students that aren’t enrolled (this really isn’t within my job). I’m asked to fix hardware and software problems. Once I was asked to deliver a check for a personal computer to the purchasing agent (who is housed in another building). Someone’s asked me how to create fancy-looking e-mail announcements (is this instructional technology?). I’m being asked to help an alum with an online chat.

Not all of these things came from faculty, but most of them did. One of the underlying issues is simply that we’re a small department and job descriptions often overlap. We also have too few staff, in my opinion, so some of these requests come through me because going through “proper channels” means waiting too long. I also have a hard time saying, simply, “That’s not my job. It’s so and so’s job.” And often these requests are piggybacked onto legitimate requests, so it’s even harder to say no.

The most frustrating requests are those for which there is documentation and which aren’t that difficult to figure out how to do. If students came to these same faculty and asked what the readings were for next week, they’d say, “It’s on the syllabus.” I once got e-mail from someone claiming there was no documentation. The giant help button wasn’t obvious enough apparently. Basically, I get treated like the outsourced tech help.

I’ve had this version of myself (the tech help, the Blackboard person) brought to my attention in quite public forums. I was on a search committee for the head of one of our branch libraries. At the initial planning session, one of the faculty said that she wasn’t entirely sure why I was here since she didn’t see that the head of the library needed to understand Blackboard. In front of me! I diplomatically kept my mouth shut and finally by the end of the search, she understood that I was more than the Blackboard person. I asked questions about digital assets and creating online learning objects in conjunction with the library’s digital collection, about balancing the need for physical objects with the demand for 24/7 access to collections. I think the faculty were somewhat shocked, not by my questions, but by the fact that the candidates themselves inspired these questions by their focus on “going digital” in their job presentations.

Yes, I changed minds during that process, but too often I am dismissed in someone’s initial contact with me. Too often, it is assumed that since I’m not faculty, I must not be as smart or as interested in academia. There’s that condescending tone they use, the obvious expectation that I can drop everything and help them with the most mundane of tasks. Most of the people who choose to become staff members at an educational institution do so because they like to think and like working with students and faculty who are smart and make them think and they believe in education. In our department alone, there are 3 ABDs and many people with master’s degrees. I could make a heck of a lot more money in industry. I choose not to because I really believe that there’s value in figuring out how to teach and learn in the 21st century. If I worked in industry, I would expect to be treated like a lackey occasionally. I expect to be treatd with a little more respect in an educational setting.

I really do love my job and most of the time I love the people I work with, including the faculty . But some days, I get frustrated. Our uber boss said of our group that we’re somewhat like an academic department. Our group was talking about setting a research agenda. Granted, there’s disrespect all around among and between the real academic departments, but just for once, I’d like for people to realize that we might be more like them than they may want to admit.

Jody at Raising WEG posts about “living in the moment” as parent. I commented there, but it also made me think about the memories my kids are starting to share with me. For example, Geeky Boy said he remembered when we first moved into this house. Just a few hours after the movers left us with a jumble of boxes and furniture, we needed to have dinner. Geeky Boy remembers that we laid out the purple blanket, brought home pizza and sat on the floor and ate. I have no real memory of this. I’m sure it’s true, but it has left my mind to make room for other things. Who knows what was on my mind instead–probably the unpacking of boxes and arranging of furniture.

Last night, we all sat on the couch together and watched “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” For the longest time, we’ve had movie night on Friday night, but with Geeky Boy’s basketball and various illnesses and travelling, we haven’t done this much lately. We were missing Mr. Geeky, but still it was nice to all be together for once. So often, we all have other things on our minds–projects to work on, papers to write, the need to be alone and unwind. Soon, I imagine, Geeky Boy will be going out with friends and then on dates. Same for Geeky Girl. In some ways, I confess I’m looking forward to at least some nights alone with Mr. Geeky in our own house. But I know I will miss lying on the couch in the dark with just the flicker of the tv and the warmth and weight of small bodies.

Instead of regret or sadness, I simply hope it becomes a memory we can all share, one that won’t slip out of our heads to make room for the nitty-gritty details of living.

For a whole hour. Geeky girl slept with me last night. She woke at 3:00 a.m. needing more medicine and some water. Then I couldn’t go back to sleep, worrying about her. I actually got up and looked up croup on the internet. It was reassuring just to know what the really bad symptoms were and that Geeky Girl didn’t have any of them. She was sleeping, breathing just fine. Finally I drifted off myself, not waking until 8:30 when Geeky Girl woke me up. I was so caught up in helping her get medicine, juice, and breakfast that I forgot to make coffee. As I was serving up breakfast, I realized that I hadn’t made coffee. Shocking, you just don’t know.

I might actually do some real housework today. Or not.

The snow has caused a two-hour school delay, so I’m still in my bathrobe at the usual bus time. Geeky Girl has a nasty cough, so I’ve decided to drag her to work with me, like Scrivner. She’s had croup a few times in her young life and when she gets a cough like this, it freaks her out because she feels like she can’t breathe. So, even though she doesn’t have a fever, I’d rather be there for the freak-out. She does well when I remind her to breathe through her nose. We just ran out of cough medicine and I’m planning to swing by the drug store on the way to campus and get some more, plus some snacks and maybe a coloring book to get her through the day.

This will be the first time in a long time I’ve taken the kids to work with me. I could stay home, but I have quite a few things on my plate and Friday’s a slow day so it should be fine. Plus, we’re recording our very first podcast today! Hooray! We’re calling it “Click and Double-Click.” It’s a tech-help “show.” We wanted to prove the usefulness of podcasting so we decided to last week that we were just going to do it. I’m pretty darn excited about it.

I’m going to have to get ready soon even though the bus won’t be here for two hours because I have to shovel the walk and the driveway (Mr. Geeky being out of town and all). Let’s hope I don’t keel over because I’m not in the best of shape these days.

Okay, okay. I give in. Someone (Prof. Goose!) was writing about the south today. Note that I have visited or lived in every southern state (I think).

bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Well, the snow came and school was cancelled and I’ve spent the day lazing around. I think I still have the kid’s attitude toward snow–snow day! No work! No school! Hooray! Plus Mr. Geeky is out of town so the routine is thrown off completely.

Before the snow hit, I went to the doctor about a weird leg thing I’ve been having. This weekend, my left leg started tingling, like it had gone to sleep. It kept me awake. It did this all weekend and eventually turned into a burning sensation, mostly in my calf. So I called the doctor on Wednesday and even though it feels better, less intense and more isolated, it’s definitely still there. The doctor has no idea what it might be, so she’s sending me to a neurologist. I go in a week and a half. By then, the pain/sensation will probably be gone, but still . . .

We’ve also inherited another kid for the afternoon, which is fine because usually they inherit my kid.

So Friday we ran a “How to get your web page up and running” workshop. Basically, we thought we were going to show people some basic FTP tools, set up web accounts for them and talk about the index page, etc. What happened, though, was that the people who showed up barely knew how to turn on a computer, much less navigate an FTP client. Here are a couple of conversations:

Flustered Professor: “Oh, my gosh. You’re going too fast. I’ll never remember this.” (Pauses to write down steps as I dictate them.) “Wow, this is really complicated.”
Colleague: “Yes, thus why we have jobs.” (It was hard not to laugh.)

Crazy Lady who comes to every workshop we have: “Where did the other picture go?”
Me: “What other picture?”
CL: “The one on the other page.”
Me: “Oh, the one we linked to?” (clicking on link we’d created to a picture to demonstrate linking to files versus linking to web sites)
CL: “Oh, there it is. Now go back.”
Me: (Clicking the back button).
CL: “Now click it again.”
Me: (Clicking the same link again).
CL: “Where is the other picture?”
Me: “What other picture?”
CL: “You know, the one on the other page.”
Me: “You mean the one embedded in the page?”
CL: “Yeah. Why doesn’t it show up when you click the link a second time?”
Me: (Dumbfounded)

On Saturday, my mom calls–actually my stepfather, who talks to Mr. Geeky first before putting my mom on the phone.

SF: “Just tell her to leave the computer alone.”
Mr. G: (Listens to my mom explain the problem). “Ummm . . . let me let you talk to Geekymom.”
Mom: “The computer is running really slow. I think we might have a virus or spyware or something. I can’t remember what programs to run. And my e-mail’s not working.”
Me: (Tell her what programs to run).
Mom: “Okay. I’m gonna do that and call you back.”
(15 minutes go by. Mom calls back).
Mom: “It says some file called something, something, something dot c-a-b is infected but it’s write protected.”
Me: “Uh, I think that’s part of the operating system. You may need to re-install.”
Mom: “Oh, crap.”
Me: “Yeah, I don’t know of anything else to do. I’d call AOL about the e-mail thing. Maybe they can help you with this too.”
Mom: “Yeah, I’m gonna back up my files now and call them.”
Me: “Okay.”

What I should have said: “If you’d tell SF to quit downloading porn through limewire and visiting the porn sites with all the popups, you wouldn’t have this problem.”