March 24, 2008
3 of the Funniest E-Mail Messages From Students to Professors -- and What They Say About Technology
Students these days seem to have no problem dashing out informal e-mail messages to their professors with gripes—er, feedback—or excuses. In The Chronicle’s forums, professors have been posting some of the rudest, most obnoxious, and least grammatical messages from students.
The messages reveal much about how deep a role technology plays in today’s relationships between professors and students.
Students Expect Course Materials to Be Posted Online
One student complained that a professor was not posting lecture slides to the course’s Web site:
Is this a technical glitch, or are you being a jerk about it? I don’t think you know what your doing in this class. I have gone to the deprtment chair about it and she doesn’t know either. How can I study and take the exams without the notes? Its bad enough your lectures don’t have sound and video.
Students Still Say ‘The Computer Ate My Homework’
Like many of the student e-mail messages posted on our forums, this one explains, in rambling detail, how technology is to blame for a missing assignment:
Dr. [spelled wrong],
I’ve had a few problems the last couple of days. You know how my computer broke down earlier this block, well I sent it in to get it fixed, and I got it back monday, supposedly fixed. So I’m like yay, I can write my paper at home on my laptop. So I wrote my paper, and I took it to my desk to go print it off yesterday afternoon, and my computer went black, it died, nothing, just like before, I called up there and they told me that they couldn’t do anything for me and that I had to send it back in! But I thought that I had learned my lesson and saved hibitually on a CD. However, my computer died before I actually ejected the CD, and when it is ejected is when the information formats so it can be read on other computers. So if I put the disc into a different computer, my paper comes up as a serious of lines and symbols. So therefore, paper gone! … I hope you understand, and will still accept my paper. I will write it as quickly as possible. And will talk to you later.
Thank you, M***.
Web Tools Let Professors Verify Some Student Excuses
Here’s one of the many e-mail excuses sent by students, with a savvy response from the professor:
Dear Professor,
I tried submitting my paper into turnitin.com today becasue I was unable to get back to school last night becasue of the snow storm. It would not allow me and I know the paper was due at 7 on Sunday nite. I was at home on Sunday and becasue of the storm my Mother would not allow me to drive back and we dont have internet at my Mother’s house. My Mother said if there is any issues of discrepancy you can call her at 555-555-5555. I am sending it via email instead.
JoeStudent
Reply:
Dear JoeStudent,
I’m a bit confused. Are you saying that you were unable to submit the exam from home because you do not have Internet access at home? If so, please explain the following.
The Blackboard system shows that you logged onto the class page for the first time in over a week after 7:00 o’clock on Sunday evening. (Perhaps you were not aware that Blackboard tracks usage.) This means that you could not even have looked at or downloaded the exam until after it was due. Also, because you could log into BB Sunday night you were obviously able to access the Internet, which means you would have been able to submit your exam to TurnItIn.com from home. So you see, there are two major problems with your “excuse.”…
Best,
MidwestGal
What are some of the funniest e-mails you’ve gotten from a student? —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Monday March 24, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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I wouldn’t call them “funny”.
— TRB Mar 24, 02:45 PM #
As an IT worker in a university, most of the lame, untruthful, and ignorant excuses I see actually come from the instructors. I am convinced that by having a Ph.D. behind one’s name somehow destroys all common and technical sense that said individual may have possessed. It’s not just a minority of instructors either, it’s the majority. Don’t they know how much information is actually logged in technology, (and that we can easily tell when they are lying about how they haven’t been on their computer in the last week but magically ‘contracted’ a virus, known to come from certain porn sites) just by looking at a network log? Quit making fun of the students…and pull the thorn from your own eye first!
— JRY Mar 24, 03:07 PM #
How smug and mean-spirited to drag out these emails in public and sneer at them. We shouldn’t throw stones in our academic glass house. Yes, some students make lame excuses and some lie. But we also have to remember that our students are people, and not objects to ridicule. As for the second e-mail in this article, it may have been poorly written, but we must remember that technology does occasionally fail even the most cautious of students. I say this as both an IT professional and an educator.This student may have been making up an excuse, but s/he also just may have been frustrated and anxious to the point of tears. One never knows.
— Ken Mar 24, 05:16 PM #
I’m a staff researcher at a big ten university and part time student. My friends and co-workers when I do get my Ph.D. want to come to the ceremony and see the giant sucking machine that takes the brains away from newly minted Ph.D.s. I think it is all of us that have our moments of forgetting how powerful computers can be when trying to devise excuses. It’s best and easier to just be honest and do what you are suppose to be doing.
Sorry no stories.
— Good ol' Bubba Mar 24, 05:19 PM #
“As an IT worker in a university, most of the lame, untruthful, and ignorant excuses I see actually come from the instructors. I am convinced that by having a Ph.D. behind one’s name somehow destroys all common and technical sense that said individual may have possessed. It’s not just a minority of instructors either, it’s the majority.” Back that up with hard data, son. What is it about people in IT that they tend to have such dismal views of academia? I have a suggestion. If you find Ph.D.s so dismally incompetent, then find a different like of work where you will be assisting persons who can live up to your very high intellectual standards. It is clear that we who teach are not quite worthy of your extraordinary level of insight and expertise. —Landrum Kelly, Ph.D., 1978
— Landrum Kelly Mar 24, 05:28 PM #
As an instructor, I have seen, heard and read so many strange e-mails from students that are vague, funny, and unintelligible. I just grin and bear it. Students think that instructors are not intelligent enough to catch them in their acts. There is a change in the student body all over the world. They will do anything to get a good grade and a degree. I wish them luck.
— kvc Mar 24, 05:58 PM #
All of this is wonderful… being a doctoral student, adjunct faculty person and an IT professional, I can see this from all perspectives and it just shows the whole gambit of academia… student staff and faculty alike… we all have problems. But before you get mad try to think about it from somebody else’s perspective… and please stop thinking about it as “us against them!” We are not a war although it may seem that way sometimes.
But sometimes it’ll make you giggle… this thing we call academia …students staff and faculty…. you just gotta take it for what it is and smile :)
— Dave Lewis Mar 24, 06:00 PM #
Misspelling my name on the first line of the email message isn’t the best way to start a request for help… especially when my last name IS my email address.
JRY, you really don’t like the faculty much, do you?
— billso Mar 24, 10:27 PM #
Landrum, I teach information technology courses. Humble faculty members tend to get more assistance, I’ve noticed. It’s OK to say “I don’t know” and to ask for help. I do it all the time.
— billso Mar 24, 10:31 PM #
Y’all made me laugh this morning. Thanks!
— Lynn Mar 25, 05:55 AM #
These are not funny. What is the point of publishing these emails?
— amt Mar 25, 06:16 AM #
So do I, billso (#9 above), but I also know when to say, when the technical tail is wagging the academic and scholarly dog, “Enough is enough!.”
No one is talking about getting technical assistance from IT. Most IT people are very good. The problem is often administrators who think that the solution to all things academic lies in new or better technology. There are also some demonstrably blind-as-bats IT (and other staff) people who have no idea what academia is all about—but that does not keep them from trying to call the shots, or taking anonymous potshots in fora such as this one.
Talk to senior faculty members across the board. I am not a dissenting voice here among that group. A little humility goes even further when the tekkies start trying to run the academic agenda, or when administrators use them to try to do so themselves. It happens all the time.
I have not been in higher education for over thirty years with blinders on. I do not typically need technical assistance, but, when I do, I get it. It is the “other” kind of meddling that has no place, and in those areas it would be good if persons in IT sometimes knew their place. They are there to assist in the educational process, not to set the scholarly agenda or let it be set through them by administrators who have no idea themselves as to what the teaching/research mission is about. They see everything as a technical problem in search of a technical solution. It would be nice and simple if that were the case. It is NOT.
It would be nice if persons would identify themselves by name. Then we might find out what persons are willing to go to the wall for. One of the things that I am willing to go to the wall for is academic freedom, defined not merely as what I may say in the classroom, but also how I may or must say it.
It is interesting that these very serious issues should have arisen in response to an article that, on the face of it, should be merely about humor. Student comments are often interesting, and sometimes amusing, regardless of the technical medium through which they are expressed.
Landrum Kelly, Jr., Ph.D.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 25, 06:24 AM #
I like laughing at everyone, including myself. Have you ever noticed that you listen and learn more when humor is part of the equation?
— maggie Mar 25, 07:24 AM #
Landrum Kelly, Jr., Ph.D. – “What is it about people in IT that they tend to have such dismal views of academia? I have a suggestion. If you find Ph.D.s so dismally incompetent, then find a different (line) of work where you will be assisting persons who can live up to your very high intellectual standards.” No need for hard data when you so ably make JRY’s point. Why should he leave? Why not expect faculty members to treat everyone as colleagues? Many (not all) faculty make a bad name by not wishing to learn simple things like how to hook up a projector to a laptop when giving a presentation and expecting a technician to come do it for them. Or, as JRY said, simply lying about work they don’t get done or blaming the email system or claiming that they spent hours working on a Blackboard course when there is no evidence they even logged on. . . Or expecting IT to do the heavy lifting when justifying a new application or piece of equipment rather than do it themselves (make the pedagogical case). Or declining to do any work to justify new technology and then simply complaining that the school doesn’t have it. Or exhibiting a classic “Do you know who I am?” attitude on the phone with some poor help desk person. Or screaming or belittling IT employees to the point where the CIO and HR must get involved.
You may be a wonderful colleague to those with whom you work. There are plenty of faculty members who suffer from severe cranial – rectal – insertion, complimented by a view of the world looking out of their belly button. The hard data? Their attitude of entitlement and the way they treat others.
— Bill Mar 25, 07:32 AM #
This discussion reminds me of the old joke (err saying?):
Students say a school would be great without faculty and staff.
Staff say a school would be a great place to work if it weren’t for faculty and students.
Faculty say they would really like this school if we could get rid of the staff (especially administrators) and students.
— Terry Mar 25, 07:52 AM #
I think it was Clark Kerr who said that a modern university is a large collection of departments held together by a common heating system.
He may have been referring to just academic departments but, as the preceding discussion demonstrates, academics and administrators (including techies) have similarly few shared values.
Over 15 years of working at, in, and for universities — as student, teacher, administrator and, yes, techie — I’ve learned to expect this sort of disconnect. What’s helped me the most is the conviction that the person on the other side of the table is right (a few obviously spoiled and whiney students aside). (S)he may have different expectations and/or priorities from me, but given those expectations and priorities, the other party’s views generally make sense.
Proceeding on that basis, it’s remarkable how differing people can work together.
— Rick Mar 25, 08:25 AM #
As a business man, and an adjunct faculty, as well as a student (as we all have been with great success I presume), I have to agree with those who say that students try to get over the system with the “technology” excuse. Try that one on the job! I advise my students I treat their assignments as deliverables or tasks in business. If I told my boss “the technology (computer, network, disk drive etc)” caused me or the company to miss a deadline, I can expect the consequences for my poor planning or lack of action, including the void of any fore thought and a sound backup plan to show up in my personnel performance review…business is business…class is not just books…it is preparation for life.
— CRM Mar 25, 08:29 AM #
Lighten up people. If we can’t find the humor in our jobs, we’re probabably going to die at an early age due to stress.
— Ray Mar 25, 09:04 AM #
After reading this, I am glad to see that my institution is not the only one with issues. I enjoyed the student comments, mostly because they are variations on a theme that has been going on for a thousand years. And the professors’ comments are more of the same. If you can’t laugh at yourself, you are taking things Much Too Seriously.
— Karen Chobot Mar 25, 09:30 AM #
None of the excuses are funny. Kudos to the instructor who caught the student’s lies and called him/her on them. That instructor doubtless paid a heavy price when student evaluations were submitted. Caught in a set of lies the student could have written, “the professor was abusive to me and questioned my personal integrity.” So long as students can submit evaluations anonymously the faculty will be held hostage to the lies and misperceptions of a subset of them, often a subset that has attended class sporadically and not read the material systematically.
— Observer Mar 25, 09:39 AM #
Funny, but also sad. Forget the lame excuses. The poor writing style, bad grammar and misspellings are disheartening. Isn’t English a required subject anymore? Ah yes, the future of our country are in their hands…
— Aggie Mar 25, 10:51 AM #
I think we tend to take things a bit too seriously… Yes, the students might have been quite distraught over their technical difficulties – it happens – we’ve all probably expereinced it. However, being honest is a much better approach.
I think it’s okay for us to have a little laugh at the excuses that come our way, as long as we are also following up with an educational component with the students. If we want students to use better grammar, it’s our job to help correct them.
Better yet, ask students who send emails like this to come meet face-to-face. It’s much easier to gauge someone’s situation when they are right in front of you. This also helps to instill in our students the importance of doing more than just jotting off an email.
— JO Mar 25, 10:52 AM #
Is it just me or do people in higher education take themselves way too seriously? Why do educated people somehow find the need to lecture others (educated as well) in comment sections of articles (yes, I am a pot and I am…)
— JD Mar 25, 10:59 AM #
All I can say is, “If you are going to teach it, learn it first.”
We had an instructor teaching how to setup a network, but then asked IT to setup the network.
Standing in front of a class and reading from a book does not qualify you as an instructor nor does writing a dissertation give me the urge to call you “Dr.”. You have to earn it from me. Respect gets respect and posting these emails from students is not respectful. I’m positive IT could list more from faculty that would scare students away.
— Darrin Mar 25, 11:16 AM #
Oh, #21, I was right with you until you introduced the grammatical error (“future” is singular; you used a plural verb form). HA! I love it. Sounds like something I’d do—particularly when I was making the point about the sad state of grammar. Guess we can all agree that everyone makes mistakes. And we’re all better off if we get a laugh out of it.
Cheers to y’all!
— TLC Mar 25, 11:27 AM #
I know students can write some pretty funny things but I have seen the same from adults, faculty, educated and uneducated people, and the list goes on. Maybe we can get a chuckle out of things, see the humor in life. That is the spice of life. Yes, many of us make excuses and forget things sometimes. We all have done something at times that has caused us or another to chuckle. For instance, I left home recently for a trip and discovered I had two completely different shoes on my feet. Now that is funny! (and a little embarrassing.) I agree that students are different today. Unfortunately they are a product of a changing world where they are taught to tests rather than learning information. They have less discipline in school today and that affects their actions and attitudes. Maybe it is actually a little sad and not really so funny.
— DK Mar 25, 11:48 AM #
C’mon, people… this is funny: “Is this a technical glitch, or are you being a jerk about it?”
I don’t see why posting one set of student emails necessarily precludes faculty, staff, parents, the world from also writing and sending similarly hilarious emails.
— WF Mar 25, 11:58 AM #
What I love from email sample 1 is this part:
“How can I study and take the exams without the notes? Its bad enough your lectures don’t have sound and video.”
I actually post my powerpoint notes (which often have sound! and video!) online for students. They rarely download them until the last minute, so they’re not studying them anyway. But you know, the other teachers who DON’T post stuff? They are teaching in a different way. It’s not all audio & video.
I recall, a long, long time ago (10 years) when I was a student in college, I had to actually TAKE NOTES myself, in class, using this thing called a PEN. Oh, it was backbreaking work. And I suffered terribly. Ink stains. Paper cuts. Tired fingers. I’m not sure I’ve ever really recovered from the pain & heartbreak.
I also had to study from an actual BOOK. And read it. Wow. That was rough.
College is NOT a right. It’s a privledge. And what students who feel they should be able to “download” all the information into their brain are missing is the drive to learn for the sake of learning. Many students want to “purchase” their knowledge, like a book off of amazon. Well, the book only teaches you something if you read it.
I know that is idealistic of me, but you know, I had to take a lot of science courses that weren’t my major field but I actually learned things that make me a better thinker in those classes. I may not have loved the course, but I studied.
Yes, English is still a required subject. And I’m pretty sure the “Aggie” was posting the grammar error on purpose…. but maybe not.
What’s funny but also very, very sad about these kinds of emails is in the bulk of them we get. I love it when a student says “youre obviously a bad teacher and I am smarter than you thkn I am.” (Grammar & spelling errors on purpose.) It just makes MY point all the more obvious. Just because it’s sad doesn’t mean it’s not also funny. Some of the best humor is also sad! But I get so many of these kinds of emails that if I don’t laugh, sometimes, I will actually cry.
I kid you not. I had a student once tell me they could not turn in their paper because they had a new puppy who got ahold of the floppy disc their paper was on and chewed it up. He did not even blink when I asked, “So the dog ate your homework?” And when this student got a D in the course for not turning in the paper till it was TWO WEEKS late, he accused me of being underqualified and a bad teacher. In a poorly spelled, grammatically incorrect email I saved. It made me rethink the D I gave him. He should have gotten an “F.”
— Kim Wells Mar 25, 12:30 PM #
To Ray from post #18: THANK YOU! I currently do not work in academia, but from my previous work experience in academia and my current work in a private corporation, I continuously find humor when it comes to using (or not using) technologies. It really does keep me going.
And, by the way, while it may seem easy to point to students and say that they use excuses like “the computer ate my homework,” variations on a theme happen in the private sector as well. Have a laugh and move on.
— DL dork Mar 25, 12:32 PM #
I thought about posting a humorous email in response to the lead story, until I started reading this thread. Talk about “flaming”! It also made me stop and think that aside from some of the absolutely lamest excuses, some of the emails I receive from students are actually quite sad, and seem to be cries for help. I find many of them really not “funny”, but rather pathetic, as someone finds themselves way over their head in what they have committed to and have paid money for. I do my best to assist such students, and as I too have a background in IT, I can see right through the lame excuses. I have also seen the cynical side of some IT “support” staff who just seem bitter about their own lack of academic credentials, and resent those who do. On the other hand, I can certainly recall witnessing some arrogant faculty attitudes on occasion…
— Lee Mar 25, 12:44 PM #
So, let me see if I’ve got this straight… Some people on this blog are “appalled” that the Chronicle would publish these e-mails. Well, you’re reading them, aren’t you? Not only are you reading them, but then you’re contributing to a long stream of blog entries.
These are funny e-mails meant to lighten the mood around here. They are meant to be entertaining and they are taken as such. If you don’t like them, then don’t read them and certainly don’t post about them.
— Bob S. Mar 25, 02:02 PM #
To Bill, #14: “Why not expect faculty members to treat everyone as colleagues?” There is plenty of academic snobbery to go around in all areas—and not just in teaching. I find it in the upper reaches of administration in some very sick institutions which have no regard for the academic judgments of teachers, as in VPAAs or even presidents who want to redo the curriculum without faculty input. You are right that everyone is a colleague in some general sense, and that includes maintenance people and custodians. Even so, when the primary purpose of an institution is teaching, those directly involved in the teaching mission are going to be closer colleagues with each other (and possibly colleagues in a different sense) than they are going to be with others, and those in IT will likewise have both closer and more distant colleagues to the extent that they actually share decision-making in their own area of expertise. Those in IT who teach can have two sets of colleagues. My point was and is the actually much simpler one that technology should be a means to an end, not an end in itself—except for those who love it as an end in itself. That is why that I say that the tail should not wag the dog. For teachers, computers and the internet are tools, analogous to lighting and plumbing, only more sophisticated. We do not want the tool to tell the carpenter how to build the cabinet, much less which cabinet to build. The point is not to disparage nor belittle support staff of any kind, but to recognize that line and staff officers do have different functions, and faculty are line officers only because they deliver the services for which the educational organization was created: teaching services. This does not imply superiority. It does yet imply difference. A staff officer in the Navy can be an admiral, and an ensign on a frigate can be considered a line officer, and so the distinction between line and staff is not about rank or salary (much less prestige), but about the types of service they deliver. The admiral on the supply vessel is still staff, whereas the ensign on a fighting ship is a line officer, because he delivers fire power—the “service” for which the Navy was created. Some IT people are both line and staff, of course, but in general there is too often an unfortunate disconnect between those who do not understand the two differing roles. This thread supports that point, and you in particular show that disconnect. The IT person who keeps my M.D.‘s office online is not in any way inferior to the physician, but they do provide different types of services: one provides the medical service for which the doctor’s office or hospital was created, and the other provides support. When I go to the doctor’s office as a patient, it is comforting to know that my medical and billing records can be quickly retrieved, not to mention medical data bases which help the physician do a better job. I nonetheless go to the doctor’s office for treatment, not to admire the computer system. Support is vitally important, and in no way inferior, but it is conceptually distinct from the line function. IT, outside of those who teach it, is purely support. I am glad that we have it. In the same way, however, that IT people cannot set the doctor’s medical agenda, neither should they set the teacher’s academic agenda, but this can and does happen in academe in a way that would never be allowed in medicine, and, when it happens, it often happens because of upper administrative intoxication with new technology, whether it supports the teaching mission or not. I see that as a simple observation. The only ad hominems on this thread so far have been directed toward Ph.D.s, and that usually means teachers. That to me is unfortunate. Students, unless they are going to major in IT or related fields, come to colleges for classes to be taught by teachers. If we are good teachers, we have used the support provided by the IT people judiciously and effectively. We are grateful for their support, but the technology they provide cannot be allowed to set the academic agenda. I knew that this thread was a can of worms when I saw threads #2 and #4, but I was hoping that some persons would not join in on the Ph.D. bashing, and I am happy to see that most have not. A couple who are still smarting at the hands of academic snobs may still be smarting. For my colleagues who are snobs, I apologize. I most assuredly am not, but I do believe that we do well to keep the roles distinct, even if in some cases one person (such as a professor in IT) may combine the two roles and be able to see both sides better.
— Landrum Kelly Mar 25, 06:35 PM #
Not as lecturer, but as editor of the website, we received an email that said (roughly paraphrased)
“Hello. I’ve been studying here for a year. I know I have to re-enrol every year. Thanks for putting the enrolment timetables online. Could you remind me which course I am on?”
— Robert Mar 26, 06:06 AM #
This sounds to me like the classic example of a slacker who:
1) Shows up for class…occasionally.
2) Has either failed every exam or missed every exam.
3) Does the homework assignment as the professor is going over it in class.
4) Wants extra credit after having done none of the required work.
Then that same student is screaming bloody murder when he sees that he’s failed the course (again, perhaps).
Hysterical.
— H. Mickey Gill Mar 26, 07:02 PM #
As someone who has been on both sides of the IT/Academic equation, I can assure everyone here that the percentage of faculty who are tech-incompetent far exceeds the percentage of students, though neither side has much to gloat about. As for whining and excuse making, it is probably about even. (Wait, didn’t FSU just decide to implement fines for professors who turn in late grades? Maybe they should dock the professors’ salaries the same percentage that profs take off grades for late assignments.)
But I guess I might imagine that if we all spent less time making fun of each other for our mistakes, and figured out that professional status does not necessarily make one a more valuable human being, our campuses would be better places – and we might discover the capacity to learn from everyone we meet.
— Ira Socol Mar 28, 09:02 PM #
Dear Professor:
Sorry I didn;t get the assigment in on time. I have a blog at the Chronicle of Higher Education and I could not think of an idea for a post so I was busy stealing stuff off a discussion forum. The good news is that everyone liked my post and I got lots of links out of it. LOL!
Signed,
CHE Blogger
— Larry Cebula Mar 29, 11:10 PM #
OMG! These all sound so, like, familiar! ;-)
No – - Seriously – - I thought you were telling the story of my life with those emails. I had all 3 of them last quarter. One student was indignant because, while I had posted the lecture notes on my webpage, I had not put them on blackboard and what a JERK I was. I tried to explain (as many of these professors did) but the response I received back was even more vitriolic! So my response was “Great! Have a nice day.”
It is a guilty pleasure when I get to catch someone trying to pull a fast one using blackboard logon data. However you would not believe how many still try to claim that blackboard must have made a mistake. “I logon to blackboard every day” one student replied. However the log only showed that he had logged on only after an assignment was due.
Some have claimed that this is due to immature students, but I think it is a statistical certainty that in a class of 200+ we will all get 2 or 3 like this every quarter – that’s only 1 percent after all. Age and maturity makes no difference. I have had some of the best emails from graduate students.
— GG Mar 31, 10:13 AM #
Why can’t we laugh at these excuses? We are supposed to be so serious, never make mistakes? This was supposed to be a lighthearted, funny column. We all know that only a small percentage of our students do this. We also know that a small percentage of IT staff respond the way one of the earlier bloggers did. Lighten up folks and welcome to the strange and wonderfully crazy world of academe. I have gotten several crazy emails from grads and undergrads. Now let’s start a column about the crazy ones we get from our chairs.
— Liz Desnoyers-colas Mar 31, 10:39 AM #
It just might help to examine a student’s message in the context of what else they have (or haven’t been) doing throughout the semester. If students are late turning in one assignment electronically, if they have turned in their other work sporadically, are in the habit of showing up late to class (or not at all), or have otherwise made my job more difficult, I’m not inclined to cut them any slack. On the other hand, if they have otherwise been diligent, ethical and respectful in their work/interactions with me and their colleagues, I might give them a little break.
— Mina Mar 31, 05:14 PM #
TLC: You failed to recognize Aggie’s irony.
— PJ Apr 1, 08:50 AM #
Landrum Kelly is my hero.
— judy pearce Apr 3, 04:38 PM #
The IT guy early in the thread may well be right. Some profs are tech dolts. Yet others, like me, know what they are talking about when they say that, for example, they don’t want Vista within 1000 miles of their computer, that the network really is down, that Blackboard’s interface is impenetrable, that the Uni’s email system is laughably unreliable, that the spam filter is really a sieve, etc etc.
I am very lucky to now work at a Uni with great IT support. But my previous Uni had tech support people that had to be shown how to figure out the MAC address or the IP address of the network connector. So please, IT people, look around at the dolts in your midst before looking for the dolts in ours.
— Tom down south Apr 3, 11:59 PM #
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