Work colleagues

[Swarley]

8 hours ago, JamesP_81 said:

Paused for 42 minutes huh ....

41 minutes 50 seconds taken to find the box of tissues...

[DA Baracus]

Is it just me that understands that it wasn't paused for 41 minutes but rather paused at the 41st minute?

You luddites.

[philpy]

We've got a guy that's been with us for a couple of months, travels up from Melrose to east lothian every day,  and he always rocks up just after we start. He always complains about getting stuck behind certain traffic in the morning, but yet he doesn't do the sensible thing and leave a bit earlier. He also thinks everyone is against him or talking about him behind his back if he rightfully gets pulled up for making a mistake or damaging something. Getting the grasp of basic instructions seems like an alien concept as well,  you'll tell him to do something and he'll forget before he's even started.

[GordonD]

1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

Is it just me that understands that it wasn't paused for 41 minutes but rather paused at the 41st minute?

You luddites.

I thought that was so obvious I didn't bother replying to it.

[DA Baracus]

5 minutes ago, GordonD said:

I thought that was so obvious I didn't bother replying to it.

Evidently not that obvious for some reason!

[Guest]

4 hours ago, philpy said:

We've got a guy that's been with us for a couple of months, travels up from Melrose to east lothian every day,  and he always rocks up just after we start. He always complains about getting stuck behind certain traffic in the morning, but yet he doesn't do the sensible thing and leave a bit earlier. He also thinks everyone is against him or talking about him behind his back if he rightfully gets pulled up for making a mistake or damaging something. Getting the grasp of basic instructions seems like an alien concept as well,  you'll tell him to do something and he'll forget before he's even started.

But you are talking about him behind his back, maybe this guy is on to something. 

[Buzz Killington]

I work in an open plan office. Is it normal to sit at your desk at lunchtime and make personal phone calls?  Especially when there two empty meeting rooms they could sit in and do it.

In the last 20 mins I have overheard one colleague phoning the doctor and discussing in great detail their daughter's illness. Another one has just been phoning various companies to change their address. I recon I have heard enough to start opening bank accounts in her name. 

Arehole behaviour. 

 

[Swarley]

5 minutes ago, Buzz Killington said:

I work in an open plan office. Is it normal to sit at your desk at lunchtime and make personal phone calls?  Especially when there two empty meeting rooms they could sit in and do it.

In the last 20 mins I have overheard one colleague phoning the doctor and discussing in great detail their daughter's illness. Another one has just been phoning various companies to change their address. I recon I have heard enough to start opening bank accounts in her name. 

Arehole behaviour. 

 

I'd say most normal people would find somewhere private but yes that sounds fairly standard as offices are full of ârseholes. The ill daughter one will be hoping someone overheard and will now talk about it. 

[GordonD]

13 minutes ago, Buzz Killington said:

I work in an open plan office. Is it normal to sit at your desk at lunchtime and make personal phone calls?  Especially when there two empty meeting rooms they could sit in and do it.

Guy in the office I used to work in once phoned his mate and described in minute detail the porno movie he'd watched the night before - much to the embarrassment of the middle-aged woman at the desk opposite.;

A few weeks later we had our Christmas night out and when the woman's husband came to pick her up, the guy asked if he could scrounge a lift. Good on her, she told him no and they drove off leaving him behind.

[scottsdad]

First day back at work, and I've gone full Prof. 

He and I had a meeting this morning about his block teaching. As a reminder, for his course he teaches his students for 3 full days (3 x 7 hours = 21 hours face to face time). I teach mine for 2 hours per week for 11 weeks (22 hours face to face time). He was talking about how it gave him weeks on end with no work other than setting online work for the students (I already have loads of that on my course, videos and written notes and quizzes etc).  Time to do other stuff. Time to reflect, think, work on other things. He even took a few days off last year mid-semester. That, and in his full days he sets out far more in-depth work than you can do in a short class. The problem he has is that his course is the only one to do block teaching. So our programme is all disjointed. 

The solution was simple. Someone else will have to do the same. In a moment of either epiphany or madness, I volunteered. 

So the students will show up in a room for a whole day, six times in the semester. Three times they get him, three times they get me. Next year we might get another couple of courses joining so students just have a full day each week, different class each time. 

f**k it. I'm feeling a bit worn out this year and maybe he's on to something. If it all goes wrong I can switch back in future. 

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, Buzz Killington said:

I work in an open plan office. Is it normal to sit at your desk at lunchtime and make personal phone calls?  Especially when there two empty meeting rooms they could sit in and do it.

In the last 20 mins I have overheard one colleague phoning the doctor and discussing in great detail their daughter's illness. Another one has just been phoning various companies to change their address. I recon I have heard enough to start opening bank accounts in her name. 

Arehole behaviour. 

Yesterday I spent half an hour alone in the break room with some rando who immediately phoned his missus and put it on speaker. He had absolutely nothing to say, looked miserable, and it became very obvious that he'd only called her because he was expected to during breaks. She just asked a serious of bland questions about what he'd been doing. Depressing as f**k.

[TxRover]

19 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

First day back at work, and I've gone full Prof. 

He and I had a meeting this morning about his block teaching. As a reminder, for his course he teaches his students for 3 full days (3 x 7 hours = 21 hours face to face time). I teach mine for 2 hours per week for 11 weeks (22 hours face to face time). He was talking about how it gave him weeks on end with no work other than setting online work for the students (I already have loads of that on my course, videos and written notes and quizzes etc).  Time to do other stuff. Time to reflect, think, work on other things. He even took a few days off last year mid-semester. That, and in his full days he sets out far more in-depth work than you can do in a short class. The problem he has is that his course is the only one to do block teaching. So our programme is all disjointed. 

The solution was simple. Someone else will have to do the same. In a moment of either epiphany or madness, I volunteered. 

So the students will show up in a room for a whole day, six times in the semester. Three times they get him, three times they get me. Next year we might get another couple of courses joining so students just have a full day each week, different class each time. 

f**k it. I'm feeling a bit worn out this year and maybe he's on to something. If it all goes wrong I can switch back in future. 

Seems a recipe for screwing a student who misses a single session. How is that addressed in cases where it isn’t their fault?

[scottsdad]

12 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Seems a recipe for screwing a student who misses a single session. How is that addressed in cases where it isn’t their fault?

You could say the same for a student who misses a lecture/tutorial now. 

The fact is, our attendance is 60-70% only. These folk pay thousands to come and many don't. 

It is a fair comment; hence why we have so much online also. 

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

You could say the same for a student who misses a lecture/tutorial now. 

The fact is, our attendance is 60-70% only. These folk pay thousands to come and many don't. 

It is a fair comment; hence why we have so much online also. 

Yes, but…1/3 of the class vs 1/11 of the class seems drastic.

[scottsdad]

8 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Yes, but…1/3 of the class vs 1/11 of the class seems drastic.

I get that. At the same time, if this really is a better learning experience overall, should we ignore it for the odd student who misses a class? 

[Sugar_Army]

When I was over at University of Georgia a few years ago with my mate doing research  we got to know one of the history profs quite well. 

He was old school and told how one of his students complained on Rate My Tutor (or something similar) that he hated the fact the Prof took class register and it was used a percentage of a grade mark.

Prof said he went into class one day, announced he had read it and followed it up with "The great state of Georgia sees it befitting to pay me to teach you.  If you cannot be bothered  to turn up for class in the hope you might graduate. then Waffle House have openings if you want to flip pancakes and burgers".

[BFTD]

Long time ago, I went to college over in the States for a while. You clocked in and out of classes with a card reader, and were allowed two absences per semester, per class. You logged a third absence and you were taking, and paying for, that class all over again if you wanted to graduate.

Obviously that benefitted the college more than anyone else, as it would've helped both their pass rates and bank balance, but there weren't a lot of absences in the classes I took.

[scottsdad]

I used to take a register. One year I plotted a graph of grades vs attendance. Clear straight line relationship. I still show it to students today. 

When you have a class of anything over, say, 80 students it becomes a hassle. Getting that many folk to find and sign their names on a sheet of paper takes ages. 

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

I get that. At the same time, if this really is a better learning experience overall, should we ignore it for the odd student who misses a class? 

My question was is there a means to address the odd student that is hit by a bus that morning, not the typical slacker.

[Central Belt Caley]

12 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I used to take a register. One year I plotted a graph of grades vs attendance. Clear straight line relationship. I still show it to students today. 

When you have a class of anything over, say, 80 students it becomes a hassle. Getting that many folk to find and sign their names on a sheet of paper takes ages. 

Think I’ve posted this before but one of my lecturers at uni took a register mainly for the benefit of if someone complained about their grade and had only been to 3 lectures then she could show that. 
 

I went to all her lectures and my mate went to all bar one and we got the highest marks in the class.
 

I would say it depends on the quality of the lecturer too, few of the lecturers I had weren’t the best and you struggled to stay focused the full time so were better off just reading the slides at home