Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Not everybody's looking forward to the beginning of the school year …

Just check out CrankyLitProf if you want to confirm that some people have a bleaker attitude than you do. Or at least write blogs from that narrative voice, or whatever lit profs call that kind of thing. I wouldn't know. I particularly enjoyed, in some sick way, "In which my ulcer begins to churn out acid."

More generally, I hadn't realized how developed the whole 'cranky prof' meme has gotten to be, like here.

Makes me feel like Mr. Happy by comparison. Man, am I looking forward to the start of a new academic year!

7 comments:

CrankyProf said...

Now, now. Had you read back just one post further, you would have seen that I was, in fact, looking forward to the new semester.

I like (most of) my students. It's the administrators that are complete tools.

Mr. Verb said...

Gee, I failed at basic irony? Another reason I couldn't be a lit prof, I guess.

Here at Wisconsin, we have our share of complete tools but we've got some fresh winds blowing.

Anyway, your blog is a nice find.

CrankyProf said...

Heh. our latest "fresh wind" decided that the word "meeting" was "too negatively charged." She's decreed that, henceforward, all meetings are to be referred to as "hubs of understanding."

Oy.

Mr. Verb said...

Even if you're kidding, that's pretty twisted. Are Hubs of Understanding directly or indirectly connected to Wheels of Death and Rings of Fire?

Brains said...

I'm a prof-in-training and I hear constant negativity from my profs about their jobs. Maybe I'm optimistic because (a) I worked five miserable years in a cubicle before going to grad school or (b) I haven't had the prof job yet.

Do only profs that have never tried work in another field think their prof jobs are the most awful? Or are they right?

Mr. Verb said...

Our contributor Joe tells the story of an old buddy of his who said "my worst day in academia was better than my best day in the factory". Kinda sums it up, I think.

If you figure out where there's paid work with no 'complete tools' around (as CrankyProf put it), please let me know!

TheCrankyProfessor said...

Hey - I'm the CrankyProfessor, and I have to say there's nothing like the award of tenure to cheer a person up! Sabbatical! yay!