“Checks?” Isn’t that a mark you make with a pen? Isn’t that a fabric pattern?
I admit, I have done this, but I am not your grandmother. I just like dark chocolate.
Okay, dude. You were hand-picked by the professor this summer to be my replacement to mentor this symbolic logic course in the spring semester. Why? You got an A in the course. That’s pretty much it. I had my reservations about it, as did the folks who run the mentoring program in the learning center. You were asked in August to sit in on some of my mentoring sessions over the fall semester to get a taste of what you would have to deal with. It’s not an easy course to mentor, and you needed to see how it worked. In the mean time, you were placed as a mentor for an intro to logic course, and didn’t do so hot there.
August, September, October, November pass with nary a peep from you. You never came to sit in, you didn’t respond to e-mails. I watched the access statistics on our online repository of mentoring materials. You never once even looked at the wealth of material (handouts, guides, analysis reports) I’ve generated over the last four years. Yet, I know you were on campus and had access to the repository; I was one of the “veteran mentors” who popped in every few weeks to gauge your current mentoring abilities (which suck, by the way, and your sexism was pretty fucking blatant), and I saw your profile pop up in other parts of the online mentoring site. You were there, but for 16 weeks you ignored e-mails from the staff and myself to follow through on your end of the bargain. I met with the learning center staff over these concerns. I had a fantastic student this semester who got the material, could approach the material from multiple angles, was enthusiastic, had actually worked with other struggling students in the session. I approached her about perhaps being my replacement, and she was enthusiastic about it (and the attendant $3000-per-semester scholarship). But, no, the professor’s preference won out, despite your lack of communication and participation.
The semester ended a week ago. You finally e-mailed me yesterday, rudely demanding to be given a video of one of my mentoring sessions so you could see how it worked. “Submit to me a video of one of your sessions by 12/19 so that I may review it and make comments.” Huh? I don’t videotape my sessions, and it was your responsibility sometime in the prior four months to sit in on one of my sessions in person.
You also demanded a handbook on mentoring the course. “You must also remit to me your ‘handbook’ on P265 by Monday evening. If I have any further questions after reviewing your submission, I will contact you.” Well, y’know what? That ‘handbook’ was a suggestion I made to the learning center staff when it was apparent that you weren’t going to follow through on your responsibility to actually see the mentoring program in person for hands-on training; I volunteered to write up a short guide for whomever would be my replacement, since we realized that we might have to find an emergency replacement who would have no time for training. Key word is “volunteered” there. It’s not a requirement on my part to create one, and it’s certainly not my responsibility to have it ready on your schedule. It’ll be done before the semester begins, and the only reason I’ll be doing it is as a favor for my professor and the philosophy department… not you.
So I e-mailed back, and explained that the responsibility to see one of my sessions had been on him during the semester, and that no videos exist, and also explained that the handbook was still being written (I couldn’t even start writing it until finals week was over, as it incorporates analysis of students’ final grades).
“This is unacceptable. You must provide me with a video and the handbook immediately, as has been explained to you. I am very unhappy with this situation. I am going on Christmas vacation with my family on the 20th, so I need these by Monday evening.”
Fuck you.
You’ve got zero room to be making demands of me, when you didn’t follow through on a single thing that you had promised to do to get training. You’re just as bad as the students in my course who don’t do shit for 15 weeks and then demand that I help them eke out a C in the last week of the semester. I get to tell them “too bad, so sad” but I can’t tell you that, because it’ll fuck over my professor and will really fuck over the students who do try to understand the concepts and require hands-on assistance. So, I’m biting my tongue, writing the damn handbook, and you’ll get it when I’m fucking ready to give it to you.
I had a really good student who deserved a shot at this, deserved a shot at the scholarship. But no, it’s going to a rude fuck who has shown no responsibility. And I hate it because I created this program from scratch, developed all the material myself, and (like the mentoring program I created for intro to logic) I had hoped it would end up going into good hands and being expanded and improved.
Oh, a word of warning… you do realize that all of our communication has been CCed to the learning center staff and professor, correct? And you do realize that the staff already had severe reservations about whether you will return the following semester. One of the requirements of the mentoring position is being polite/courteous to others in the mentoring program, not just to students and the professor. And we are discussing this problem. They’re not fucking happy with you. They’re seriously considering just killing the symbolic logic mentoring program, or at least putting it on hiatus, rather than having you take over.
look jerk of a brother, I understand that you enjoy jabbing at me at every opportunity but it is too much for you to not announce when I am trying on the coat our Mother got me for Christmas “I thought you hated brown!” You aren’t just making me feel bad you are making Mom feel bad as well. I wasn’t raised that way and I am pretty sure you were there with me so WTF?
I can deal with you bringing 3 of each cookie when there are 4 of us, I can deal with you announcing that your girlfriend picked out my gift, or saying you bought it for yourself but decided you didn’t like it or you buying really nice expensive gifts for our parents and buying me a spoon. We are in our 50’s and it used to bother me but I got to the point where I laugh about it as of 20+ years ago, but it makes me a little crazy that you would be mean to Mom to get at me.
So just shut up.
shoot I wish you lived closer! I have boxes og Asimov and other such magazines I would like to get rid of. I liked readng them and don’t want to throw them away but I don’t know anyone who wants them.
I wound up getting Granny some fancy hot chocolate with gourmet marshmallows. I think she’ll like it. 
I love the lady that cuts my hair. She works quickly, which I appreciate because I don’t really like having my hair messed with. But she’s always late. Always. Yesterday I was her first appointment of the day and I showed up about three minutes before my appointment time and she wasn’t even in the building yet. She finally showed up about 15 minutes after my time. She of course apologized profusely, and I always forgive her because I really don’t want to break in a new stylist. But geez lady, set your freaking alarm clock!
I’m also pitting myself for going completely off of my workout routine. I think it’s been over a week since I was on my bike. I feel so much better when I work out, you’d think I’d want to do it. But lately I’ve had a million excuses why I haven’t. Go ahead guys, kick my butt and tell me to get back at it!
This whole thing confuses me as I write checks for almost everything. Is this another indication that I am old and out of touch? 
Student Driver since he is demanding a video and no such video of your mentoring exists may I suggest you send him a DVD of Gigli, Starship Troopers, or perhaps Caspar the Friendly Ghost* along with a quarter. Enclose a note that goes along the lines of: as I have previously explained there are no videos of my mentoring. Repeated insistence that I forward to you something that does not exist will not cause them to be created out of nothingness.
But since you continue to insist on a video to watch I am enclosing a copy of (insert video title here).
I am also enclosing a quarter may I suggest you use it to buy a clue. You have not done any of the things required of you to prep for this position, and now you wish to to the blame on me? Your failure is your failure alone.
*IOW the worst movie you can find
If that goes to others, it just makes him look bad.
But I would say something along the lines of “I can only repeat that no such video exists”.
Why do you write checks? If it’s just that you always have, then, um. But if you just never thought about it and upon thinking realize there’s a better way, then, you’re good. I use a card for everything and get 1% back on everything and 3% back on groceries and gasoline. Why would I write a check when the card is quicker, everyone takes it and I get money back?? Maybe you should think about why you write checks and re-evaluate.
Sublet her room while she’s away.
The “man” that I’m “talking to” asked if he could borrow money. WTF, dude? You know I’m a single mother with three kids, at Christmas time, and I work part-time right now, and I’m on food stamps. I’m the one you ask for money? Me?? If I’m your best hope for money, you must have seriously burned some bridges in your life. Could someone tell me what the fuck is wrong with people?
Alice; Many years ago this guy who a mutual friend kept trying to tell me I’d really get along with if I gave the guy a shot, got into some financial trouble about this time of year. He gambled his entire paycheck away at the casino trying to make more money to solve other issues. He didn’t want to tell his wife he’d gambled away the mortgage payment, so he started looking who he could borrow from.
So who did he go to for money? Mutual friends who were one month from expecting a baby. Of course they said NO.
One month later he does it again. Goes back to them. Four days before her due date (which was when she did have the baby). Of course, they said no again.
A few years back a different friend who made about $1 an hour less than me but was less in debt (this about 2 years before I declared bankruptcy) decided, upon comparing our debts, to ask me if I could loan him $3500 so he could go buy a maxed out gaming PC. Um, dumbass, are you even sentient at this point? I’m up to my eyeballs in debt, you just admitted that you had zero intention of paying some of your debts, but you ask ME for money to buy something as frivolous as a fucking gaming computer???
I don’t know what it is, but some people are utterly clueless about who they ask for money.
Well, not only did he not get any money out of me, but I am completely turned off and won’t be engaging him any more. Loser. Guess I should thank him for giving me such a clear and obvious early warning sign.
Look, kid. I respect your privacy. I told your mom that at your age, you don’t want some woman you barely know pawing through your underwear drawer. But if you leave your room in a shambles, your mom is going to ask me to take care of it, and she’s the one who’s paying me. So don’t whine to her. If you want me to stay out of your room, see to it that I don’t need to go in.
And stop playing with fire, punk. First it was charred toilet paper rolls and a burned-out lighter in the bathroom (and soot on the mirrors). Now it’s a burned-out lighter and empty bottles of perfume and air freshener in your carpeted room? WTF. And I would ask if that was your mom’s perfume, but I suppose it won’t matter much the day I show up to a smoldering cavern that used to be an apartment.
I got a temporary bout of RLS for the week after my hysterectomy a couple years back because I spent the first 24 hours with those massaging booties to prevent clots [or just to annoy me, not sure which] and it triggered some sort of irritation in the nerves/nerve sheaths in my lower legs. Day I got home from the hospital and tried to take a nap, it hit. I took my evening meds, which included a gabapentin and no RLS at night. [I take it for something entirely different, and only at night] Over the next day, any time I tried to nap, RLS. So I called my neuro and asked him if I could go to 3x a day to see if it would stop it and he gave me permission to, and it stopped it after the first week but he told me to keep up with it for an additional week.
ROFL, I love it.
The fasting began an hour ago. Only water until after my appointment tomorrow.
How dipshitty is your professor that he’s willing to let a student service bite the dust over his numbnuts of a choice?
I won’t kick your butt, but I will tell you something that has made a huge difference to me - I stopped waiting to find an exercise that I enjoyed, and changed my attitude towards exercising. For me, exercising is like flossing my teeth - I’m never going to enjoy it, but I have to do it, so I just get on with it.
I write checks because my debit card doesn’t give me anything back, I don’t use a credit card for anything other than emergencies and I find if I use the debit card rather than writing a check I tend to forget to write it into the check book. Tho I have managed to train myself to check my accounts online fairly frequently. I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head that doesn’t take a check except for the gas station.
Ick! Be strong!