I had two public appearances today, in different parts of town. The second one was scheduled back to back with a stupid meeting on campus and involved me bringing several heavy props to illustrate my performance. The pay is excellent and I love the audience, so I couldn’t say no.
In the midst of all this and it being the first week of class, one thing I didn’t do was prepare for the stupid meeting. The degree to which I didn’t prepare was at the level of an F minus student. I run in 15 minutes late and everybody is in the midst of flinging the most egregious accusations at each other.
“Your tenure isn’t even real! Your department rejected your tenure case. The Dean had to ram it through because everybody knows you are litigious!”
“Yeah? Like we don’t know that you have fewer publications than your own graduate student!”
“At least, I have a graduate student!”
At this point, everybody turns to me, who is the chair of the bloody subcommittee and somebody says, “Professor, what do you think about policy 1RtGH-33/2? We need your take because we are getting very bogged down in these personal accusations.”
Of course, I never heard of this policy and had not the slightest idea it even existed. I tried to wing it which went pathetically badly. People stared at me in shock but then the fake tenure guy started screaming insults again so that was a good distraction.
Tomorrow is looking equally crazy. We have a department party. And I have two farewell parties, all on one day. And I’m teaching. So yeah, fun.
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