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bloodied but unbowed
Gah. This was one of those days that just would not go easily, regardless of everything I had done to try to make it easier. I think it owes me damages, because I took all the damage it threw at me.
Today was SOP day, which is usually anticlimactic, because all the running around happens the week before, up to the day before. The day of, I can generally sit back and copy the votesheets and reviews and assemble those in packets and everything goes along swimmingly. I wish today had gotten that memo.
For some reason, this month's meeting was a bitch to set up and a worse bitch to pull off in any sort of coherent order. We didn't get two of the five reviews until this morning and all five of them needed revisions, which necessitated an email storm, and it didn't help that one of the reviewers happens to have the same last name as somebody who was on one of the committees, so the request for revisions went to the wrong person (not my fault, I didn't send that particular email).
Then, just to make things interesting, two hours before the meeting I got a call from the assistant of one of the committee chairs. The candidate in question had already put us through the wringer getting his appointment through for this month at all, because he sent us the wrong CV, rewrote it for a week, sent it to us three days later than we needed it, and it was still wrong. We were getting clarifications by email up to this morning. The committee chair got caught in the OR and couldn't make the meeting, which meant I had to revise the agenda, remove the votesheet from the middle of the stapled packet, remove the review, call three people and get them to show up earlier than we had told them to (for the third time), and reassemble the 30 votesheet packets.
Having sorted that one out, I waited until the customary half hour before the meeting and went downstairs to set up for it. Lo and behold, no caterers. I ran back upstairs and called them, and got voicemail, and left a message. I had actually come back upstairs for the spare packets, which I had to disassemble and reassemble with the revised agenda and in the right order. That took about ten minutes, after which I went back downstairs again. No caterers. I ran back upstairs again and my boss called and actually got a real live person, who said they were on their way. So we got cheese and crackers and all at 3:55, for a 4:00 meeting.
I don't go to these meetings unless they need somebody to take minutes, so I went back upstairs again. Fifteen minutes later, the assistant dean calls me and asks if there's been any word from one of the reviewers, who apparently isn't there yet. This is not my fault either; last I knew, he knew about the meeting and was planning to be there. Apparently he forgot he had agreed to review one of the candidates for this month. Sigh. (This probably means I get to make yet another round of reminder calls next month, just to make sure nobody forgets, which means yet another checklist. I've already got four pages of checklist for this stuff. I don't want any more.)
When I finally got home I went out back to see if my tomatoes had survived. Something (I'm guessing squirrels) ate them down to inch-tall stumps. So I have no tomato plants any more either.
About the only thing to be said for today was that I was at work late enough to walk home in the sunshine, which was nice. The bottle of wine I bought two weeks ago is nice too. I meant to cook something in it, but it's working pretty well for drinking, just now.
Today was SOP day, which is usually anticlimactic, because all the running around happens the week before, up to the day before. The day of, I can generally sit back and copy the votesheets and reviews and assemble those in packets and everything goes along swimmingly. I wish today had gotten that memo.
For some reason, this month's meeting was a bitch to set up and a worse bitch to pull off in any sort of coherent order. We didn't get two of the five reviews until this morning and all five of them needed revisions, which necessitated an email storm, and it didn't help that one of the reviewers happens to have the same last name as somebody who was on one of the committees, so the request for revisions went to the wrong person (not my fault, I didn't send that particular email).
Then, just to make things interesting, two hours before the meeting I got a call from the assistant of one of the committee chairs. The candidate in question had already put us through the wringer getting his appointment through for this month at all, because he sent us the wrong CV, rewrote it for a week, sent it to us three days later than we needed it, and it was still wrong. We were getting clarifications by email up to this morning. The committee chair got caught in the OR and couldn't make the meeting, which meant I had to revise the agenda, remove the votesheet from the middle of the stapled packet, remove the review, call three people and get them to show up earlier than we had told them to (for the third time), and reassemble the 30 votesheet packets.
Having sorted that one out, I waited until the customary half hour before the meeting and went downstairs to set up for it. Lo and behold, no caterers. I ran back upstairs and called them, and got voicemail, and left a message. I had actually come back upstairs for the spare packets, which I had to disassemble and reassemble with the revised agenda and in the right order. That took about ten minutes, after which I went back downstairs again. No caterers. I ran back upstairs again and my boss called and actually got a real live person, who said they were on their way. So we got cheese and crackers and all at 3:55, for a 4:00 meeting.
I don't go to these meetings unless they need somebody to take minutes, so I went back upstairs again. Fifteen minutes later, the assistant dean calls me and asks if there's been any word from one of the reviewers, who apparently isn't there yet. This is not my fault either; last I knew, he knew about the meeting and was planning to be there. Apparently he forgot he had agreed to review one of the candidates for this month. Sigh. (This probably means I get to make yet another round of reminder calls next month, just to make sure nobody forgets, which means yet another checklist. I've already got four pages of checklist for this stuff. I don't want any more.)
When I finally got home I went out back to see if my tomatoes had survived. Something (I'm guessing squirrels) ate them down to inch-tall stumps. So I have no tomato plants any more either.
About the only thing to be said for today was that I was at work late enough to walk home in the sunshine, which was nice. The bottle of wine I bought two weeks ago is nice too. I meant to cook something in it, but it's working pretty well for drinking, just now.