Read. TheFecking. Email.

I’m not sure how fall semester can already be underway… but it is. We have gone overnight from calm and quiet between-session peace, to the stark raving madhouse. I’ve got a dozen folders on my desk with two dozen things to be done to them. I am starting to overlook things, so it’s time for a little OD break. 

One of our many jobs in this office is to do graduation audits for seniors, which means looking at their records and letting them know what they still need to graduate. Or, in many cases, what they’ve completely missed and didn’t know about and "WAAAHHH, nobody toooooooold me!!!" We used to make the students come by and request an audit, but last spring decided to start doing them automatically like most other dean’s offices do. Which is nice in that it gives us a very steady flow of work, and we don’t have to rush – when we waited for requests, we’d get a zillion at once right before registration for the next semester started so it was a lot more pressure. The down side is that when they had to come in physically and request the audit, we had them fill out a form which asked specific questions like what checksheet year they are following, and what their minor is and what their concentration is if they have one. Now, in lieu of the form, I send a mass email out to everyone who shows up on the list that we run — all the students with enough earned hours to be technically seniors.

The email is very simple and to the point, and contains bullets so they won’t have to strain their poor little reading comprehension skills any more than necessary. The email tells them they have reached the required number of earned hours for a graduation audit. It tells them we will be doing the audits in alphabetical order throughout the semester, and that we will email it to them when it is complete. It tells them, in bolded type, that if they have already had an audit, they will NOT get another, and to please disregard this email. (I am working on a way to determine who has already had an audit, and by next semester I think we’ll be able to weed those out easily.) It also tells them, again in bold type right before the bullets, to PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY. 

Hahahahahahahahaha!! You know what these kids today can not do? They can not read carefully. I am not entirely convinced that they can read at all, but they certainly do not appear capable of reading an email containing four bulleted items and comprehending what it says. I won’t bore you with what the bullets say, as it will not be very interesting to anyone who is not about to get a graduation audit. You will have to trust me that these are not complicated requests. Okay, for example, one bullet point basically says "if your major requires a minor, and your minor is not showing on your transcripts, let us know and we will add it." The other three are equally simple.

SO. Yesterday I sent out over 500 of these emails. Approximately 498 students have come by or called, saying they got an email about their audit, and what are they supposed to do? And they got an audit last semester, so when will we send them this one? 

AAAAGGGHHHH!!!!

Okay, okay, I exaggerate. A bit. I’ve had quite a few calls and emails from students asking me to add their minor and telling me other information we need to know to do the audit. But the ones who glance at the email and then come rushing in to have it explained to them are kind of getting on my nerves. The email is not complicated. The things it asks them to check are not complicated. It’s not asking for anything they do not already have the answer to (or at least they SHOULD. If they don’t, they are even more doomed than I’m already suspecting. If, for example, you don’t know what checksheet year you are following and how to look at your online transcripts to make sure it’s correct, you are probably not going to graduate EVER). 

It’s yet another example of how micromanaging your kids and doing everything for them their entire lives and never ever subjecting them to the agony of being forced to read a four-bullet email and comprehend what it says is resulting in a whole generation of people who are so helpless I don’t know how they manage to find food and water when they’re on their own. And they are also getting on everyone in our office’s very last nerve. So, stop it. K, tkx!

Okay, back to work. My dad is doing okay. His dementia-roommate is actually perfectly fine — he’s not at all noisy and I don’t know where I got that. He’s got mild dementia and I wouldn’t really know anything was wrong except when he’s in bed he’s got a cord attached so the nurses will be alerted if he tries to get out. My MIL is losing her perfect roomie today so I hope she’ll get another good one. She’s in for at least a few more weeks. We are going to see her tomorrow afternoon, then coming back up here, and then going to see my dad on Saturday. We can’t both spend the night because we aren’t convinced that Stella is eating when we aren’t warming her SnapJack Tuna Fancy Feast Even Fancier Than Ever Appetizers in the microwave and delivering it to her wherever she’s lounging like the princess she is. We determined yesterday that we REALLY need to start trying to make her eat the dry food– she is not totally well but she’s on the mend and there’s no reason she can’t eat dry food like everyone else, aside from being totally and completely spoiled now. Which is okay – I’d certainly rather have a completely spoiled Stella than no Stella at all! But she’s still way too skinny and fragile to just stop feeding her the Fancy Fancy Fancy Feast and make her starve till she decides to stoop to dry food again. 

So, till then, we contort our trips. Or board her at the vet like we’ll do next week.. when we go to… CHARLESTON!!