Just one example of many...

Recruiting starts tomorrow.  It's going to be a trainwreck.  We've got a new assistant grad program coordinator who is um, not the sharpest knife in the drawer or tool in the shed, or bulb or crayon in the box.  I could go on. My classmate and I have been coordinating the student drivers for the past several recruiting weekends, and needless to say this woman is making our job considerably more difficult.  But it turns out she's not the only one who's a little slow...


This afternoon I got an email from this asst grad coordinator asking if I am going to dinner tomorrow night.  I usually do, but there's really no reason that I need to be there.  Anyways, I tell her (um, somewhat snippily) that I was planning to go.  And then she tells me, less than 24 hours before recruiting stuff starts, that we have a recruit who lives on campus here (as she's a current undergrad here) who does not have a car, and asks if I can give her a ride to dinner.  Nevermind that there's no mention of the fact that surely she needs a ride back to campus after dinner, or that presumably we'll have to shuttle her individually back and forth to all the off-campus events.


I replied to the asst grad coordinator saying sure, I can do that, tell her to meet me behind [chem dept building] at 6 pm.


I got this email at 6:41 tonight:

Hi Anne,


[Asst grad coord] sent me an email saying that you are going to take me to the [hotel where all the other recruits are staying] for dinner tomorrow night.
I [was] supposed to meet you at 6 outside CSB, but I did not see you there.
Can I have your phone number so I can contact you tomorrow?
Thanks.


Best Regards,
[Lacking-all-common-sense Recruit]

[HEADDESK]

I replied to clarify that I meant tomorrow... as that's when dinner is.  I see a few possibilities here.

1. This recruit is not very bright.  Like to the point that I'd be concerned about odds of surviving grad school.

2. This recruit's English is so poor that she didn't understand the email from the assistant grad coordinator.  Entirely possible, though sadly I've seen people with far, far worse English make it through a PhD.  (Before you jump all over me - I've studied abroad, I know it's incredibly hard and tiring to master a language to the point of being functional, however if you want a degree from an English-speaking institution in an English-speaking country, I fully expect you to be functional in English.  End of story.)

3. The assistant grad coordinator is even dumber and more useless than I thought she was.

And 4th - the only possibility of which I'm sure - is that this recruit has so little common sense that it never occurred to her that the idea of meeting me today was weird and made zero sense.  (Yes, some combination of these possibilities is also plausible.  Also, no, sadly common sense is not required for a PhD, though I'd argue that it should be.)

Sadly, this is the most benign example I have of why this weekend is going to be a chaos teetering on the brink of disaster.  Counting down the hours until Sunday at noon...