To all secretaries, especially those who are now or who aspire to become administrative assistants: I realize that you may have young children, but this is an adult workplace. Please do not use baby talk here. If, for example, you make an error, please refer to it as such. Do not widen your eyes and say “I made a boo-boo.” Your effort to portray yourself as a day care provider, and to cast faculty in the role of wayward toddler, is passive aggressive and obstructive. I am sure you are aware of this. I implore you to stop. I remind you that we are all over 18 now, but more importantly that the word obstructive is the operative one here. Please see also Memorandum 2.
Axé.
Note: this post was written before Professor Zero was taken into custody. Signed: THE DIRECTOR.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Through her gag Professor Zero hastens to say:
It is fortuitous, so fortuitous, that this post came up today. Today I:
Went to campus on a non teaching, no meetings day where I had a lot of work to do and did not need to be bothered, but went to help a busy student who does not know how to use WebCT and therefore cannot do work for my class, learn how to use it.
Then found out that the graduate student for whose sake the secretary had scheduled one of my fall courses at a time very inconvenient to me and which will mean most in field undergraduates cannot take it, now wants to take the course “by independent study” meeting with me on Wednesday *nights* which are “the only time convenient to [her].” The secretary says that accommodating students in this particular graduate program is more important than my research or the students in the discipline the course is actually in.
God save us from secretaries who think they are department chairs. I am fit to be tied, metaphorically, although of course I am already tied to a chair literally (as well as gagged) – although I can speak through my gag with some effort.
Also: if the secretary makes *another* administrative “boo-boo” that affects me negatively and also in the same day spends a lot of time organizing an office birthday *party* for a faculty or staff member – especially if that party costs money, I will be yet more irritated. Of course I do not doubt that this will in fact happen.
This is when I like to quote Nancy Reagan: “Just say no” to graduate students who want a private class at their convenience.
Joanna – yes, it would be nice, and at an R-1 one can say such things. However we have just re-gotten our PhD program and it is essential for the maintenance of our university’s Carnegie category (according to older Carnegie categories than those now extant) that we produce, from our department, Progress To Degree. No matter what is lost, the gain in terms of Graduate Student Credit Hours is more important.
I think it probably depends on the R-1. At my university, laudable efforts to reduce the number of Ph.D.s granted have led to caps on admissions and resulting limits on the number of grad courses offered. For the last several years I have not been permitted to offer a grad course in my specialty. The result is that I teach independent studies to five-eight students per year in the area. I am not allowed to refuse to do this, either, because we have a system for determining how many classes we have to teach and just teaching the usual number of courses faculty in my department teaches has historically put me slightly below that number. So I have to teach them in the most labor intensive, least intellectual responsible way.
Servetus – that’s almost *exactly* the situation I’ve got.
Go back to your cell, Professor Zero!