Q&A about Being a Boss

I don’t know if this is going to help you or not, but they will feel exactly like this towards you no matter what you do. You can drip with the milk of human kindness all day long but then one day you will refuse to be somebody’s personal secretary or simply inconvenience somebody by taking a sick day, and they’ll pout up a storm.

What I’m saying is that they’ll be unhappy no matter what. It’s not the austerity decisions. It’s that you are not the perfect mommy they always wanted.

I had two colleagues with a very underenrolled section each. I told them, “Look, we have a week left before the beginning of class. If we sit very quietly and don’t attract attention to ourselves, the administration will probably forget about us and won’t make us cancel.”

“Oh yes. Please, please, please. I’m really counting on the money. I really need the section not to be cancelled.”

Two days later, one of these people sends a group email to me, the other underenrolled colleague (they are the only two teaching this language), and five people in the administration. The email goes like this:

Hi! I have a very underenrolled section, and the classroom I was assigned is too large for such a small section. It would be more convenient for me to take classroom XYZ but it’s occupied. I asked the person teaching there to switch but she refused. Can you help?

At this point the other underenrolled colleague chimes in with how his section is also very underenrolled and if classroom switches are being made he also wants one because he doesn’t like the furniture in his classroom.

Eleven cumulative emails along these lines later, and the administrator who was trying to be kind and not notice the underenrolled sections had to notice. Too many people became involved and the endless repetition of “my section only has 5 students” demanded action.

What does this remind you of if not how toddlers behave? You are torturing yourself but they’ll self-destruct whether you exist or not. What’s the point of having a bad time over this?