Memo to whom it may concern.

The bullets are addressed to different people and organizations, and I doubt very much that some of them would recognize these were addressed to them even if they received an actual memo. (It’s been that kind of week.)
Be it known that:

• I do not at present have the power to be in more than one place at a time. If I did, rest assured that I would find more interesting ways to use it than simply getting two kids to soccer-related activities in different locations at the same time.
• I wrote a detailed FAQ for my online class for the express purpose of helping students locate the answers to frequently asked questions about the course. And yet, a number of students persist in asking me those questions rather than first consulting the FAQ (and continue to do so even after having been directed to read the FAQ). This does not fill me with enthusiasm for fetching new email messages.
• Speaking of students, why does it seem like a good idea to so many students to beg for (or in some cases demand) add codes for classes about which they seem to know approximately nothing beyond the name and the distribution requirement it fulfills, especially as we enter the third week of the term? Can they really believe those first two weeks of material (and assignments) were utterly unimportant?
• If you are operating as a “phone company,” going so far as to bill monthly for the “land line” that is supposed to deliver “phone service,” it behooves you to actually deliver that service. And, for the record, an earful of static over the sounds of another residential customer’s answering machine greeting is not functionally equivalent to a dial tone.
• When a uniformed campus police officer stands in front of the entrance to a parking garage, right next to a large sign that says, “GARAGE FULL. Use Park & Ride Lot,” and waves you out of the lane headed toward that garage entrance, the official determination is that the garage is full. Arguing about it probably won’t change that determination.
• No matter how interested I may be in various curricular development projects, there is no way I am going to let one encroach on my anticipated sabbatical. It’s nothing personal.
• Department chairs are clever creatures. They can set up conditions where the penchant of a faculty member (like, say, me) for playful banter has a high probability of distracting that faculty member from taking a moment to evaluate the chair’s request prior to giving an answer. Specifically, I was asked to be “acting chair” for a few days, a role I have filled before during the summer. “You know it will be a reign of terror, ” I said, “The corridor awash with blood.” “Just what I’d expect,” my chair replied. It was only after I said yes and had hung up the phone that I remembered: three weeks into the term, there are lots of people who want something from the department chair.

On the plus side, I’m a little in love with the guy at the burrito shop who knows my regular order and starts making it before the guy at the cash register is even done ringing it up.