• 2 years - 28 posts - Latest - RSS
• OP: 74 Goods vs 9 No Goods
• Thread: 288 Goods vs 149 No Goods

1. Sociologist
   0299
   

   ^ You come on an anonymous message board to disparage your departmental support staff for not working hard enough and I'm the ahole? That's rich!

   You really think that observing that these are relatively easy jobs is somehow "disparaging" those who do those jobs? Do you even soc, bro?

   In the US we like to imbue the idea of "hard work" with moral significance, with the corollary being that people who don't "work hard" are morally inferior. Obviously this is a culturally-specific social construction. And it is why everyone in the US complains of being over-worked as a tactic for claiming the moral high ground.

   I've been tt at three different universities, been department chair, hired department secretaries, and worked closely with them. I can confirm the observation that it is not an especially demanding job, and that there is much down time. That is not any kind of moral condemnation; simply an observation.

   2 years ago # QUOTE 4 GOOD 11 NO GOOD !

2. Sociologist
   cdfc
   

   ^ You really think that observing that these are relatively easy jobs is somehow "disparaging" those who do those jobs? Do you even soc, bro?

   Having you as chair must have been one nutty ride.

   2 years ago # QUOTE 10 GOOD 1 NO GOOD !

3. Sociologist
   0299
   

   Having you as chair must have been one nutty ride.

   Having me as your adviser would be even worse.

   2 years ago # QUOTE 2 GOOD 5 NO GOOD !

4. Sociologist
   0bda
   

   I'm in favor of this proposal. My god, think of how much work we'd all get done if we didn't have to write all these letters of recommendation.

   2 years ago # QUOTE 6 GOOD 2 NO GOOD !

5. Sociologist
   08ee
   

   Having you as chair must have been one nutty ride.

   Being okay with his secretary having down time make him a bad boss somehow? What kind of crazy place is this?

   2 years ago # QUOTE 0 GOOD 5 NO GOOD !

6. Sociologist
   b820
   

   letters of rec primarily benefit low performing vhrm candidates.

   get rid of them entirely

   2 years ago # QUOTE 2 GOOD 4 NO GOOD !

7. Sociologist
   75e4
   

   1) Do you seriously spend that much time in your departmental office such that you can make generalizations about the secretary?
   2) What kind of weirdass office setup does she have that you can see what's on her monitor?

   0299 impeccably demonstrates the limitations of generalizing from an N of 1. I also doubt your actual skills at observationally understanding the requirements of your departmental admin's job.
   You seem like an ahole, but I'm going to engage you anyway. What kind of overwork does the secretary experience at your department? Ours spends a whole lot of time at her desk doing her nails and shopping on the Internet.

   2 years ago # QUOTE 8 GOOD 0 NO GOOD !

8. Sociologist
   75e4
   

   I've had a number of administrative assistant kinds of jobs at nonprofits, and while I wouldn't call them demanding -- e.g. low cognitive load and enough time to get everything done -- I definitely did not have time for downtime outside of lunch. If they had lots of downtime, it meant their manager was not being proactive enough in assigning work. Or you, as chair, were not proactive enough about letting the secretary's manager know what needed doing (or didn't care enough yourself to figure it out).

   ^ You come on an anonymous message board to disparage your departmental support staff for not working hard enough and I'm the ahole? That's rich!
   You really think that observing that these are relatively easy jobs is somehow "disparaging" those who do those jobs? Do you even soc, bro?
   In the US we like to imbue the idea of "hard work" with moral significance, with the corollary being that people who don't "work hard" are morally inferior. Obviously this is a culturally-specific social construction. And it is why everyone in the US complains of being over-worked as a tactic for claiming the moral high ground.
   I've been tt at three different universities, been department chair, hired department secretaries, and worked closely with them. I can confirm the observation that it is not an especially demanding job, and that there is much down time. That is not any kind of moral condemnation; simply an observation.

   2 years ago # QUOTE 7 GOOD 2 NO GOOD !

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