I'm chairing this committee and there's this work we have to do. It has to get done, or bad things will happen to other people.
We set a due date of today for 11 of the things to be done (by 11 people). How many are done? 3.
(These aren't things that can be done in just a couple of minutes at the last moment, but take a fair bit of time.)
Sometimes, my colleagues are worse than my students about lateness. (But, fortunately, I know that, so we set the date a bit earlier than absolutely necessary, and I sent out a reminder today. Yeah. The thing is, if the task isn't done by the real deadline, there's no way to do it late and push the deadline back.)
When it comes to lateness, the only real difference between colleagues and students is the content of the excuses.
ReplyDeleteAnd the lack of an ability to grade down for lateness!
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm more likely to take it personally when colleagues are flaking on me!
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think "committee chair" actually means "person who sends reminders to other faculty"
ReplyDeleteI'm responsible for several committees, and much of the time, people do what they're supposed to. But I'm often surprised by how much poking and reminding I have to do.
ReplyDeleteThe dog ate my committee work.
ReplyDelete