bricks without straw

April 6, 2011 in Job, Rants

the procedure for TA’s administering quizzes:
log into the “secure site” with your university password;
print out hardcopies and run off copies (one does *not*
have direct access to the copying *machines*, however…
run ’em off at your own expense or wait your turn
at the department’s copy center).

so far so good if the system actually worked.
but no such luck. when i got the email with
the link to the originals over the weekend,
i went and glanced at the link; okay.
there appears to be a quiz here. but i don’t
own a printer so i waited until i was on campus
to begin creating the actual paper documents.

whoops. locked out of the system. no time
to fix it. gotta postpone the quiz.

naturally there’s some resentment from the class;
naturally i’ll take a great deal of the blame.
(fortunately for me there were others suffering
the same problem or the *administration*
would presumably go ahead and blame me, too.)

in the twentyfirst century economy there’s *usually*
a robot between me and whatever i want.
and the more i want it? the more of my time
the robots will burn up uselessly while i try
to get it. telephones? your service *will* fail
and if you try to get it fixed, prepare to wait
on hold for a long time before you can get
to the menu with no option remotely like
serving your needs. home internet connection?
same thing, but worse (on my model because
i actually *want* to be online but not to talk
on the god-damn telephone). and don’t even
try to get me to *think* about health insurance.

look, i like breathing in and breathing out
as much as the next guy. but when does
this become unacceptable?

(here’s last year’s why i don’t
live at the p.o..)

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