small… rant

i am getting a very strong anal vibe from the Spanish department here. For example:

Tuesday we had a one-hour meeting about how to properly and professionally address people and how to use titles correctly. One hour!

In our TA handbook (=20 page list of rules and rules and rules), among other things, they made it a point to remind us not to take other people’s food from the shared fridge because it’s not public food, etc.

In my spanish teaching methods syllabus today, my instructor goes on a 1 paragraph rant about grades in grad school and how "Bs are to be avoided and Cs indicate you are not performing at the graduate level." After telling us the due date for our work, he adds, "Remember, xxx program sends me the submission date of all items so I can check what time you turned everything in."

Seriously, if we are in graduate school and we cannot be trusted not to steal other people’s food, not to be disrespectful, or to be able to determine on our own what grade we need to earn in a course, what the hell are we doing here?

It’s like they don’t trust us not to fuck up a single thing.

The linguistics department I came from was a lot more laisez-faire but I guarantee no one ever abused that trust because trust is a wonderful, precious thing.

I appreciate the amazing opportunity to work for the Spanish department and teach and go to school for free, etc, but it really grates against my personal standards to work for a department whose philosophy is so vilely untrusting. I cannot stand being micromanaged and having people constantly looking over my shoulder. Hopefully I can be a linguistics TA next year.