Seven

Make that seven jury duty summons in 10 years.  I got another jury duty summons in the mail yesterday, for the same week as Friday's summons!  This one was for federal court in Tucson.  (Friday's was for Baltimore City County court.)  Obviously I'll be excused from the latest summons as I've moved out of state, but what I don't understand, is how they mailed the summons directly to my Baltimore address, but still think I'm a resident of Pima County in Arizona.  We're not talking mail forwarding by the postal service, this was actually directly addressed to me in Baltimore.  The logic amazes me.  What also amazes (and irritates) me is that even after filling out the juror questionnaire online and responding in about 4 places that I've moved out of state, the system still told me to call in on my assigned date to see if I'm needed.  Totally absurd.

Academia is even dumber.

Within the span of 48 hours:

Monday night I realized that I've been put on the department colloquium schedule without any notice.

Because I won that award/competition last year, I'm supposed to give colloquium at some point this year.  Colloquium is the department-wide seminar series, usually with outside, already-PhD-having speakers, as opposed to the mostly student seminar series within each division.  But I never got put on the colloquium schedule, and since I only got "half won" and got half the prize money, and giving my final seminar in the Analytical seminar series would be less scary, I didn't complain.  Some time late last semester I got put on the Analytical seminar schedule for the last week of April.  Then last week I talked to the Queen, and we decided to just wait until I defend this summer and give my final seminar then.  So I got removed from the Analytical schedule, and the date was given to somebody else who wanted it.  Sounds good.

Monday night, E sends me a message asking if I knew I was scheduled to give colloquium May 3rd.  No.  No, I didn't know that.  Yesterday I asked the Queen if she had meant for that to happen.  Nope, she didn't know anything about it either.  If E hadn't happened to look at the colloquium schedule a month from now, see my name, think that was odd, and ask if I knew about it, I wouldn't have had any idea until the Friday before.  At which point I would have thrown a royal fit.  I am NOT giving a 50 minute, department-wide seminar with less than a week's notice.  Who on earth thinks that it's appropriate to schedule a student for that kind of presentation without ever informing them or their advisor???

Wednesday night I realized that neither the department nor the university think I'm graduating.

Tiff and I were having another dissertation date last night, and she said something about somebody from the Grad College harassing her for her dissertation title, because something or other couldn't be printed until she had it.  Ummm, what?  Nobody has asked for my dissertation title.  Tiff had another email just that afternoon about commencement - what time to show up, the requirement to wear and cap and gown to be hooded, etc.  I haven't had a single email about commencement.  And come to think of it, my invitation to the department awards/commencement lunch said I was invited because of a couple of awards.  Not because I'm a graduating student.  WTF.  Even my invitation to the department awards/commencement lunch only mentioned a couple of awards, nothing about being a graduating student.

This morning I frantically went to our grad program coordinator, and sure enough, my "committee appointment form" never got filed with the graduate college.  No idea how or why.  Apparently it should have been filed at least 6 months before I plan to defend (we're definitely within that window now, considering my funding runs out in 4 months).  When I asked how I was supposed to know to do that, I was told that now it happens automatically when you pass your oral.  Yeah.  I passed my oral three years ago.  It sounds like the process for this form changed sometime while I've been in grad school and I slipped through the cracks.  Awesome.  The form got submitted this morning.  Hopefully people get their shit together and my name gets read and is listed in the program.  Because I want to be hooded damnit.  And should my parents actually get their act together and come out here for commencement, I sure as hell want my name in the program, because I'm the one who's going to have to listen to my mother bitch about it if it's not.  ARRGGGGHHHH!!!!

So glad it's over...

Recruiting is over.  And I think it went ok overall despite one ridiculous thing after another.  My definition of "ok" is managing to mask all the ridiculous stuff well enough that the recruits go home thinking the weekend was well organized and ran smoothly.

All the drivers (about a dozen people currently) are student volunteers, and are there to take the group of recruits where they need to go as well as out for some fun social things.  They do not exist to serve as individual chauffeurs for whatever an individual student wants.  Here's just a sampling of some of the hiccups  - some out of our control, some recruit-related, and some related to that incompetent new assistant grad coordinator (let's call her Marge for convenience sake - not her real name).

• Thursday morning (the day the recruits all arrived) the hotel tells us that nobody can check in before 3 pm because they were booked full the previous night.  The recruits started arriving at 10:30 am.  At least a dozen were here before 3 pm.   There's no way a bunch of people didn't check out first thing in the morning.  You really mean to tell me you can't have even 2-3 rooms clean by noon?  To stall, we wound up taking the earliest arrivals out to lunch, and made several recruits wait around at the airport much longer than normal.

• That girl who lives on campus without a car?  Yeah, not that bright, NO idea what she's getting herself into, completely overwhelmed.  I'm pretty sure her undergrad research advisor (who is a nut job) twisted her arm into applying.  Oh, and this girl isn't responsible/mature enough to make a damn decision and tell anybody if or when she needs a ride.  When I drove her to dinner, there was no mention of the fact that she needed a ride back to campus.  Nor did she say anything about the rest of the weekend's events.  When I pointedly asked if she was going on the Friday afternoon outing or to class, trying to get at whether she could wait at the hotel between said outing and dinner, or if she needed a ride from campus to dinner, she couldn't make a damn decision.  Soon enough it's Friday afternoon at 5 pm and I have no idea where she is or if she needs a ride.  At that point we all decided that if she needed a ride that was just too damn bad.  Funny side note - Saturday afternoon she decided to go with the group that was going on a tour of Tucson.  She's lived here for 4 years.

• A few weeks before recruiting weekend there's an online signup form for students to volunteer for various events.  In past years, shortly before recruiting, everybody who signed up gets a name tag, schedule, and the necessary maps in their mailbox.  Professors also get schedules and maps.  The only thing anybody got was a name tag.  Guess who's job that was.

• There was one student who requested to fly into Phoenix a day early, and planned to rent a car to drive down to Tucson, and then fly out of Tucson like everybody else.  For some reason, somebody decided this was ok.  When Marge emails this kid to remind him that he needs to be at the hotel by 6 pm, he asks for a ride from the rental car drop off point.  On the total opposite side of town from the airport.  Apparently it would cost him twice as much to return the car to the airport.  After a series of emails, it is decided that Cliff (the other 5th year grad student who organizes the drivers with me) will drive pick this guy up.  Thursday afternoon Cliff gets all the way across town to the rental car place and can't find this kid, so he calls him.  Turns out earlier in the day he called Marge to tell her he decided to keep the rental car, and wouldn't need a ride.  Did Marge answer her phone or ever check her messages?  Nope.  Awesome.  A waste of time and we look disorganized.  This gets more ridiculous.  We assumed that once he decided to keep the car (no idea why, but I found out later he drove back up to Phoenix Friday night for who knows what reason) that he was no longer our problem.  Wrong.  Saturday night, during dinner, he asks another driver if somebody will follow him to the rental car place after dinner.  No notice, no consideration that the drivers are supposed to be driving the other 39 recruits to the party.  I know I'll be gone, but I hope this kid doesn't come here.

• Saturday morning the recruits come to campus and have a series of one-on-one meetings with professors.  Marge was meant to be there before the recruits arrived to meet the caterer who delivered snacks and beverages.  Guess who was an hour late.  Guess who then sat there all morning not interacting with or helping any students find their meetings.  Yep.

There were other examples too, but I'll leave you with two funny recruit stories:

• At lunch on Thursday (the early arrivals we had to entertain before hotel check in), one guy mentions that he's going to have to relearn how to iron his clothes.  I guess he'd packed everything ironed, but well, it had all been crammed into a suitcase...so... The girl at lunch then offered to help him.  For real.  We then suggested that she teach him rather than doing it for him.  I found out later that she totally did.  His pants weren't in too bad of shape, so she just supervised that.  Then coached him through ironing his shirts.  Too funny.

• Friday night student drivers generally take the recruits out to the bars.  On the way down to the hotel lobby to head out, something like 13 of them piled into one elevator.  Somebody said hey, let's all jump.  A couple of them jumped, and the elevator totally got stuck.  For 45 minutes.  Ridiculous, but super, super funny.  If either of the jumpers actually come here, they will never be allowed to live it down. :)

This morning I gave my feedback to the graduate program coordinator (who is more than competent and absolutely wonderful), emailed all the planning documents I had to the grad student who's taking over coordinating the drivers, and cleaned out the folder where I had various old documents stored.  SO excited that none of this is my problem any more!

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...

Jury Duty

The day after getting back from the Grand Canyon I had to go to jury duty.  Like I mentioned before, this is the fifth time I've been summoned for jury duty.  Random my ass.

Anyways, I get in there, and what do you know?  I actually get pulled for jury selection.  The last time I went I just sat there in the room until they dismissed us all at noon.  They took twenty of us over to Tucson City Court for selection for a DUI case.

A couple funny notes about jury selection:

• One of the prospective jurors worked for the city - she knew just about every cop, clerk, bailiff, judge, and prosecutor in the county. She wasn't put on the jury.
• At one point they asked us (the prospective jurors) if we knew anybody in the room - defendant, either attorney, other jurors etc.  One prospective juror said that she knew defense council professionally - he had represented her on another matter.  Another DUI case.  Where she was found guilty.  Hilarious, and needless to say she wasn't placed on the jury.
• They have a set list of questions that they ask each juror, the last of which is what tv shows do you watch and what magazines do you read.  This seems like a silly question, and most people answered with types of shows or types of magazines.  One guy actually said that he reads Playboy and Maxim.  Dude, I'm pretty sure nobody needed to know that...
• Now you would think that in a DUI case defense council would see an analytical chemist as an undesirable juror, especially when the main defense is that the breathalyzer can not accurately represent the defendant's BAC.  Given that this girl was so obviously guilty (so obvious to me as soon as opening statements were done - I'm sure the attorneys knew this going into it), I'm sure the prosecutor thought yes please! put the analytical chemist on the jury!  However the defense attorney was a fool to agree to let me sit on that jury...although...he was a fool in all sorts of other ways too.

The defendant took the stand and after half an hour of listening to her life story (irrelevant), education (irrelevant), and plans to marry in November (again, irrelevant), she sat there and swore that she was completely sober and not at all impaired after 3 beers within an hour on an empty stomach while weighing only 120 lbs.  Sure.  I significantly outweigh this girl, and I couldn't drink that much in an hour even with a meal and be ok to drive.

Her lawyer was awful.  Absolutely awful.  I don't know if all DUI attorneys are sleezebags, or if he's worse than the average, but wow.  The entire thing was like a stage show.  I think approximately 5% of what he told us was actually relevant to the case.  When he wasn't waxing poetic about nothing he was waving 4 fingers around while telling us she only had 3 drinks and calling is client by the wrong name.  I felt really bad that she wasted her money on this scumbag.

The whole thing took a day and a half.  The first day wasn't so bad, and some parts were pretty interesting.  The second day was brutally painful.  The paid expert witness brought in by the defense in an attempt to convince us that the breathalyzer is going to give a falsely high result depending on how long after drinking the test is performed was incredibly garbled and confusing.  It didn't help that the defense attorney is an idiot and had him talking in circles.  So painful and aggravating to listen to all morning.

The most baffling thing about this whole trail/experience, was that the incident took place over 4 years ago.  FOUR YEARS for a DUI to come to trail.  That just seems beyond absurd.  Unfortunately we never had an opportunity to as if that's normal, or what the hell made this case take so long.  Seriously, if she had pled out when this happened it would be over and no longer a part of her life.  Yeah, it's gonna be on her record, and I'm sure affects her insurance, but the tangible consequences would have been ancient history by now.

Once we were released to deliberate it thankfully only took us about 30 seconds to realize we all already agreed that the girl was guilty.  She seems like a nice girl, but nice people show poor judgment too.

A couple days later I got a cute little form letter from the judge thanking me for my service.  Let's see how long it is til I get summoned again...

Lacking Competence

My labmate sent an email to me and our post-doc asking if we could proof-read the dissertation chapter she just finished. Here's her message:

Would you two mind reading this? By reading this, you are exempt from reading anything else (ok, maybe just one more chapter, as we are limited not by the number of people in our lab, but in the number of competent people in our lab).

So funny, and so true. When random strangers find out that I'm a graduate student in chemistry, the first thing that a horrifying number of them say is, "Wow, you must be really smart." My standard response to this is now, "You'd be surprised..."

Maybe next time...

Maybe the next time I fly will be a nice, normal, on-time, uneventful trip. Maybe.

I flew back to Tucson today - this is my rescheduled trip back to Tucson after last week's Europe fiasco. It wasn't really a bad trip back - I mean, I travel a fair amount. Certainly enough to have had way, way worse travel days.

The first weird thing was an announcement that the flight was oversold (that's not the weird part), and they were offering $650 vouchers to give up your seat! Their rerouting offer really wasn't that bad either. If I'd been sitting closer to the podium I probably would have taken them up on that, because wow that's a lot of money. I really don't think I've ever heard an airline offer more than $300 or so. Alas, people thought as I did, and jumped on it.

Time to board. I had an earlier boarding group than normal (when I get to pick my seat I'm usually in the last or 2nd to last group to board - I use a combination of closer-to-the-front and research done at seatguru.com to choose a seat) - but I thought hey sweet, there will be plenty of overhead space still, and goodness knows that after Christmas break I could use it. So there was still plenty of overhead space, but as I'm walking back and looking at the row numbers, I realize that I'm seated in an aisle seat in the dead last row of the plane. You know, the really awesome seat immediately next to the bathroom (with so much traffic and elbow bumping that there's no chance of sleep) that doesn't recline. It's a 6+ hour flight from Boston to Phoenix. Sweet. Then my seatmate arrives, and instantly gives me this speech about how great the back of the plane is - the safest place in the plane, and right next to the bathrooms! Bonus!

Once we were settled in and waiting to push back from the gate, I closed my eyes since I had a headache (that lasted all day of course). I wasn't really aware what was going on around me, other than that we'd been sitting at the gate for way too long to leave anywhere close to on time. Eventually the pilot came on and said that with the bit of bad weather we were going to go through, the plane was overweight, so we had to wait for them to remove some of the mail that had been loaded. Then a while after that, the pilot came back on and apologized for the delay, that there had been a "passenger issue" that he was sure many of us were aware of, and we were finally ready to leave the gate in Boston. Between sitting in the last row and attempting to sleep, I had no idea what he was talking about, but being in the last row, I could hear the flight attendants conversations. Apparently some jerk in first class pitched a fit when they told him he'd have to check his (oversized) bag, and when he got belligerent the air marshal came and removed the guy from the flight! Definitely one of the more interesting reasons for a flight delay!

Now I really want to know what happens to you when you're removed from a flight. Did he get arrested? Surely they don't just let him take the next flight. Does anybody know??

My seatmate proved to be annoying and a total nutjob. He'd brought about 10 lbs worth of newspapers with him, and even though he wasn't a big guy, he spent about half the flight occupying half of my seat space with his elbows as he read the paper. He also spent a good portion of the flight clipping coupons. You know, like grocery coupons out of the Sunday ads. Who does that on an airplane?!?! Honestly I think it's one of the stranger things I've seen someone do on a plane.

Anyways, between the excess mail and the unruly passenger, my flight landed in Phoenix at exactly 2:30...and my flight to Tucson left at 2:36, while I was most definitely still on the first plane. Fortunately there's a flight to Tucson like every hour, so I didn't get back too much later than planned.

Let's hope the next travel day is less ridiculous...

No Escape

Me: Sooo if I've done my time taking care of the lab dumbasses today, I'm off the hook for a bit right? It'll be somebody else's turn tomorrow?

Post-doc: Not likely

Me: Damn it

Post-doc: That's kind of a daily responsibility. Like feeding the goldfish in kindergarten.

...

Post-doc: Just pretend you don't speak English. Or put the ipod headphones in. Though I hate when people listen to earphones at work.

Me: Oh that doesn't work. [He] will crouch next to my desk until I take the headphones off.

Rant

So my roommate, and not that it should matter, but my kind, beautiful, fun, funny, smart, interesting, overall-awesome roommate, just sent me the following text message:

Ok I just had a coworker say, "I can't believe you're not married, what's wrong with you?"

Now before you tell me that you're sure this person meant well, let me tell you that comments like this NEVER, EVER leave you feeling good. Worst case scenario, they leave you wanting to jump off a cliff. Best case scenario, they leave you thinking, "What's wrong with me?! What the hell is wrong with YOU???"

I was at a wedding a couple of months ago when my friend's mom asked me if I had a boyfriend back in Arizona. When I said no, she asked why not. And not even as a rhetorical question, she actually looked at me waiting for an answer. I've never been on the ball enough to actually give a response beyond mumbling "I don't know" and sitting there awkwardly. While I'm fuming afterwards I mull over various inappropriate responses along lines such as, "Well my girlfriend and I..." or "I prefer to sleep with as many men as possible..." Maybe someday I'll come up with a polite response that still effectively puts people in their place.

I really, really wish people would think before saying crap like this. It's just so thoughtless and rude. There's no reason why she (or me, or any of the other 20-something single women who have heard this) should be married! Maybe she just hasn't met the right guy yet, or maybe she doesn't want to get married. There's nothing wrong with being single! Or maybe she was married, and widowed young - wouldn't you feel like schmuck then?? Yes, I would personally like to be in a relationship, and if/when I find the right guy, get married and have a family. But not every woman wants that or should want that. I know I'm not perfect, but just because it hasn't happened yet for me, or maybe won't happen, doesn't mean something is wrong with me.

Ugh. I really wish people would get over the idea that women should be in a relationship, should want to be in a relationship, and must be seriously flawed if they aren't. And if what they're really thinking is, "This girl is really cool, some guy would be really lucky to be with her," then they need to find a better, non-offensive way to say it!! I know I'm really defensive about this, and I probably shouldn't let this bother me so much. But it really irritates me when people say crap like that.

Alternate post titles:

WTF?!
Think Before You Speak!!
What is wrong with people?!
People Suck
Ugh