Friday afternoon meetings are the worst*

By -
Is it ever appropriate for someone to yell at someone else in an academic faculty meeting? I would say no. Especially so if you’re a higher rank than the person you’re yelling at. Especially not during a brainstorming session on a Friday afternoon. Especially not if you’re a man and you’re yelling at a woman.

I just had another taste of how people at work don't value me or my opinions. The comment I made was clearly not going to be a major focus of what we were doing, but I thought I had a valid point and should be allowed to make it. If no one felt it was worth pursuing or discussing further, that’s fine. However, my comment was met with anger and aggression from one colleague. Nobody else said anything. I felt uncomfortable for being yelled at so I left the meeting right then. One (female) colleague emailed later to ask if I was okay. Another (female colleague) did on Sunday. The person who yelled emailed to apologize, but apology also pointed out that I was wrong. So that’s where I am.

All the years I had to miss meetings and other events to take my daughter to school or doctor’s appointments, it was never suggested that these meeting/event times be changed so that I could attend. But if I suggest that the meeting time itself makes us less productive? Well, we’ve had these meetings on the same day for DECADES and we’re not changing now. So it’s clear that my opinion is not important. Or that everyone else loves meeting on Friday afternoons.

I’m now faced with a decision: do I stop attending meetings? Or do I attend and bite my tongue to avoid saying anything? I never expected such a reaction to my comment, so I now feel like I have no idea what might cause such a reaction in the future. And by Friday afternoons I’m tired. It’s harder for me to filter myself. And is that really the problem anyway? Me filtering myself? Just feeling crappy on this Monday thinking back to Friday. But know this: I’m not hurt. I didn’t cry. I’m angry. I’m bitter. Great way to start the week.

*Something I've been saying for 16 years.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Important Advice for College Students Regarding Grades

By -
The semester has just ended and I have received emails from several students inquiring about their grades.  Most of these emails have asked me to reconsider the grades that I reported to the university registrar and are now released to students.  These emails have become increasingly more common and also more brazen in their requests/demands.  I would like students to think long and hard before sending these end-of-semester emails and consider a few questions: Did you attend this class? If you answer "yes", but you missed more than 10% of class meetings (in my classes this would amount to missing more than three out of our 27 class meetings), how many classes did you miss?  Did you miss them for a family emergency? Due to illness? Or because you overslept or had more important things to do? Most of us have policies that allow flexibility for illness and family emergencies.  It is also good to learn what university offices can assist you with these matters. At...
Read more

Summer Plans

By -
We've reached the halfway point of the summer here at Miami (we start classes on August 24th), so it seems like a good time to take stock of what I've accomplished and what I still plan to do this summer. Progress Most of my work this summer has focused on REU and with the help of my student, we have made some good progress on a project. After some debate, I decided to stick with using some methodology that we've already used in this research, but apply it to different data. Most of the work done so far on this project (and the pilot study before the grant) focused on using fall imagery to detect Amur honeysuckle in forested areas. This shrub expands its leaves earlier in spring and retains them later in fall than the overstory tree species, and thus far, we have used fall imagery in our analysis (we felt that too many other plants were also green in spring). Recently, I started to reconsider this approach and tested some spring images for a conference presentation this spr...
Read more

Getting back into the groove

By -
My job can be really funny in some ways. I go from having ultimate flexibility in the summer to the structure and schedule of the semester. There is no transition. One day, I just get up and classes are back in session. I am teaching mornings this semester, so I have gotten back into a schedule of getting up early and coming into campus to teach. My afternoons are more open for labs, meetings, research, class planning, etc. and by 10pm, I am pretty wiped out. The first week back is always a shock to the system- I slept for 10 hours last Friday night! Once I get back into a routine, things are fine. I feel pretty good about how my classes are going so far. In my intro physical geography class, I am trying online quizzes for the first time. Every Monday morning, a new quiz is up for the students to take and they have until Friday night at 10pm to finish them. They are graded automatically, since I have the correct answers built into the quiz. There were a few technical glitches for the f...
Read more