Don’t bother to tell me your name when you leave a voicemail message. I have over three hundred students this semester, but don’t worry, I’ll recognize your voice, because you’re special.
If you email to ask me, “When’s the next test?,” don’t tell me what class you’re in. I’ll just drop everything and look in all my class rosters until I find your name. And don’t worry about the fact that this information is in the syllabus; you’re special, I’m delighted to email it to you personally. Now, if decline to use your school-issued e-mail account because you have a special email address, like “superhotsexysportschick@hotmail.com” or “dooooderman69@msn.com” to express your sparking personality, and you don’t sign your email with your name, I’m afraid I’m going to have to waste your time by emailing you back to ask for more information.
I wouldn’t dream of stiffling you by demanding that you put your last name on your paper. Sure, my grade book is organized alphabetically by last name, but I can search through it for your first name. I don’t mind the extra work, because I know that putting just your first name makes you feel special because your first name is so unique and unusual. It’s just one more reason why you are so, so, very special.
Out of sheer curiousity, what is his first name? Is it as common as John or Steve? Because if not, you should damn well know who he is by first name alone.
As the Employee Health secretary of a major urban hospital, you mind if I jump on this bandwagon?
I appreciate your conservation of ink, Michael Johnson, but I really do need your medical record number and department so I can distinguish between you and the twenty-seven other Michael Johnsons I have in my god damned database!!! Don’t even get me started on the people (usually MDs) who scroll some undechiperable scribble as a signature, ignoring everything else we ask for.
Ah yes, yes, you’re in a hurry and don’t have time for such things. I guess it slipped your mind that you filling out a piece of paper without any actual evidence that you actually filled it out means you’ll have to actually doing the whole thing over, huh? Yeah, I thought so.
I got an e-mail from someone yesterday consisting of the word “Congratulations”. Now, I know what I was being congratulated on (because it was a replyto an e-mail from me) and there are only about twelve people who recieved the e-mail, some of whom have nice self-identifying e-mails, but still. it makes life much simpler if people include identifying information, such as a name. (In this case, either first or last would probably work, the group is that small, but I used a reply to all feature to send the e-mail in the first place so I don’t have a list matching up e-mails with actual names).
I was almost irritated enough to start a thread like this, but too lazy. Since I can now just add my gripe to someone else’s, it is now worth the effot.
Driving one day, I was cut off by a driver in a hurry and had to slow almost to a stop to avoid hitting them. The driver didn’t give any indication that I even existed, or that he/she had just run a light to give me the privilege of being cut off by them.
My friend turned to me and said “You see that car? It belongs the the Most Important Person in the World.”
Made me giggle.
More directly related to the OP:
“I know the answer to problem XX was YY, but I don’t think I should miss it because here is what I was thinking when I answered ZZ…”
My first experience as a teacher was in a university school the summer after I graduated from college. On the last day of school, I had this question from a senior just as he was ready to turn in his final exam:
I was going to the grocery store this afternoon, and it was a 4-way stop. No problem, I just go up to the stop sign, stop, and then turn left after the guy on my right went through the intersection. Problem was, the guy behind him decided that, “Hey, I need to get going right now, so I’ll just follow the guy in front of me!”. Bastard.
Also, as I was trying to pull into a parking spot, this guy decided to pull out. Now, before he was leaving his space, in a medium sized car, I was driving right in front of him in a Suburban. He decides to get going while I’m right there.
In case Lord Ashtaris curious, it’s Hoshi. He is indeed the only Hoshi I have as a student. And I do in fact know his last name now because I’ve had to look it up every time I fucking go to enter exam grades.
Liberal, you’re scaring me. Stop channeling my “Stars for Poets” students.
I encountered another one in this : Special people do not print their names clearly on exams. They express their individuality and artistic free spirits by signing their name as an unreadable scrawl.
mr podkane
i missed section 2-day when you handed out the terms list and you wernt in ur office when i came by at 8 pm but the exams is tommorrow. ZCan u send me the definitions, plz?
tnx
kourtnay
I’m guilty of this one, after spending an hour on a deceptively difficult proof on my symbolic logic final and then scribbling it onto a napkin so I’d remember it:
"Professor,
This is killing me. Please ease my poor freshman brain. Was this the answer to the last question on the PHI 315 exam?
<insert 20-line proof>
Thanks!
Tom"
I shudder when I think of it, even though he answered back with “Tom, your proof is correct.” In its entirety.