life in droughtime

We are supposedly in the midst of a severe drought. At lunch I got caught in such a torrential downpour that the parkinglot I was in looked like a lake.

And it hailed.

I finally had to drive back to work and the highway was like a river. It was quite scary. I have to confess that yes, I DID try to document it with photographs, but nothing really came out and I decided maybe I better concentrate more on not having a wreck and less on taking pictures of the terrible storm. Especially since a few drops of rain makes everyone in this town drive like they’ve lost their minds. Downpours just mean wrecks right and left.

So, yeah. Drought. It also rained quite a bit Saturday. I know, I shouldn’t complain. I chose to live in Monsoon World!

I’m writing at work because I’m the only person here today. J and K both took the day off, and our student worker called at about 10 to tell me she’d just woken up. In a town four hours from here. And she was supposed to be in at 8. Well, generally she’s the best student worker ever, so I’ll cut her some slack. Even though it’s been kind of a pain to be completely alone. I like J not being here – peace! Quiet! Nobody chattering to me!!! But of course it means I also get to answer all the calls and questions. No concentration. But hey, what else is new?

I’ve spent most of the day emailing the upcoming fall student teachers who never did register for student teaching. I found, upon checking, that something like FIFTY of them aren’t registered. They were supposed to register in MARCH. I’d also emailed them all in March telling them to register or else, so I was quite peeved to discover this many never had. So I sent each one an email, telling them that they really do have to register. NOW. Well, not now, but when the schedule adjustment period opens on Friday. My email was very nice, kind of unlike how I was feeling about it. For example, I did not say, "WHAT is WRONG with you people???? You were supposed to do this TWO MONTHS AGO!!!"  I sent more of a gentle reminder because I know several had weird problems but I couldn’t remember who, and I didn’t want to be mean to them if I’d already told them not to worry about it. I’m glad now I was nice because I’ve had several already get back in touch with me and tell me they DID register. They just aren’t registered now. Because…. the new computer system has apparently eaten their registrations!!!

GREAT!! I did wonder how that many could have just ignored my previous request to get themselves registered. They’re not usually that slack. This is actually quite scary. Because it’s another sign that we’re all doomed as doomed can be with this new system. Last week I suddenly lost the ability to register people myself. When I called my friendly contact at the registrar’s office, she sounded like she was about to cry. And wasn’t kidding. I’d lost my ability to register people because suddenly only people who have had all the training can register people. I hadn’t had all the training – I’d only had the first class. Because that’s all that had been offered yet. She didn’t know when the rest of the classes would be. She didn’t even know how many more we have to have. So basically nobody has had all the training because all the training doesn’t exist yet and nobody knows when all the training will exist. But until we have the training we can’t do big hunks of our jobs. But it doesn’t exist yet! Because the guy who is head of all this hasn’t even scheduled it yet.

Right after our conversation, within a half an hour, the Head of All This Guy sent around an email with training dates for the next round of training. Which started the next day. And of course although you had to sign up, you couldn’t sign up because there was only a link to sign up for classes in the past.

We. Are. Doomed.

And I did go to the next round of training which was supposed to be very job specific but really wasn’t that job specific. There will be yet another round of training that is even MORE job specific. When will that be? Since I can’t do big hunks of my job until I have it?? All of it?? Who knows!!! We don’t know when the next round is, and we don’t know how many more rounds there are. We just know that we are doomed!

Oh, well. My boss was marveling at how calm I was about this the other day, and as I told her, there’s no reason to NOT be calm about it. We didn’t create this impending disaster, and there’s not a thing we can do about this impending disaster but sit back and watch the ship hit the iceberg. And make sure we have our lifebelts buckled securely! I hope it won’t end up as bad as it appears – I HOPE after a few glitches things will go just as smoothly as glass — but I saw what happened at my last job where a new computer system was implemented by people who didn’t know what the hell they were doing. The company ended up going under, is what. Of course, this is a university and not a company, and it won’t be going under, but things could get really really nasty.

And I’m taking next week off because it’s my birthday and we’re going to Charleston for a couple of days. At least I hope we’re going to Charleston – Baker B just called me and said he was going home because he didn’t feel good. He SO better not be getting sick. He hardly ever gets sick, and when he does he recovers fast. So he better recover fast. But I think this may be a good time for us ALL to take a little vacation.

Well, I need to get back to my poor little unregistered students. I’ll leave you with more flowers!

And drought clouds!

You can tell we’re having a drought because it’s so green.