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Pet Peeve

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Clarissa

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One of my pet peeves is the habit some people have of putting the due date on their calendar as the date when they should begin to work on a task. “Please submit before October 31” to them always means “Remember on October 31 that you were supposed to be working on this.” Of course, it always turns out that the paperwork they had to submit was due at 8 am on the deadline date, and they start sending out pitiful emails at noon, enquiring how it all happened.

I’m not talking about students. These are adults. If you have a document that takes 3 minutes to fill out, why not fill it out when you receive it instead of entering it into your calendar and then waiting until the absolute last second to do it?

This is particularly dumb since due dates for things tend to cluster around the 15th and the end of the month. You regularly end up with an avalanche of things that need to be done immediately if you confuse “due date” with “to do date.”

9 responses to “Pet Peeve”

  1. Post Alley Crackpot Avatar
    Post Alley Crackpot

    You should have made the due date 25 October and then granted a “reprieve” to 31 October for people who didn’t get this done.

    You’ll get better results by looking like you’re being gracious instead of getting an end-of-month cram down.

    And as for why, haven’t you figured this out yet?

    Never work on something too early when it may not be needed at all!

    So they’re hoping this paperwork requirement will just go away if they ignore it.

    HI IT’S 26 OCTOBER AND YOU ARE NOW LATE!

    … but I’m a nice person, so you get until 31 October, you slacker. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I always do that when I’m the one who sets the due date. But this current due date is set by the IRS and they consider themselves too important to play these games. Which they probably are.

      When I was editing a volume, I set due dates of 3 months before the actual due dates because I know what academics are like.

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      1. Post Alley Crackpot Avatar
        Post Alley Crackpot

        And you don’t run a protection racket for these things?

        So disappointed.

        The question isn’t whether to do System D, it’s whether you need to do it harder!

        “Oh, that research time you were looking forward to … shame if something happened to it.”

        🙂

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  2. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “putting the due date on their calendar as the date when they should begin to work on a task”

    …I’m feeling very judged right now…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Ah! You are one of them! How could you, my friend? How could you? I thought you were on my side.

      🙂

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “How could you?”

        I was ready to launch into a maost round of self-criticism, admitting attachments to old bourgeois ideology… and then it hit me… I might well have a tiny amount of Native American ancestry…
        This means that ideas such as “deadlines” and “honoring deadlines” and criticism of those who “don’t meet deadlines” are all deeply rooted in white supremacy and very traumatizing to those of us immersed in native ways of knowing and who follow the seasons and only work when the time for labor has ripened like a plump persimmon ready to be harvested….
        Should I go on?

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          I’m almost ready to break into a recitation of a land acknowledgement, so let’s stop right here. :-)))

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          1. cliff arroyo Avatar
            cliff arroyo

            “land acknowledgement”

            I am writing this from unceded Mierzanowice, Trzciniec-Komariv and Lusatian lands….

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    2. Post Alley Crackpot Avatar
      Post Alley Crackpot

      [looks into a crystal ball and sees you in the afterlife]

      “OOOH OOOH I PICK THAT ONE FOR ADMINISTRATIVE HELL!”

      “Yesssss, we could run the entire Sixth Circle off that one’s suffering, such joys of efficiency in shame and judgment to experience!”

      Repent now. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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