Day 10 of Mechanical Testing and things are still moving reasonably tickety-boo (knock on wood).
Yeah, there's been set-backs and nothing has gone over perfectly, but it's mechanical testing and research. I've come to understand why Stewart was so mind-numbingly calm whenever something went terribly wrong. I guess he had to be. With all the things that could possibly go wrong (and all the things that did), it would take too much energy to get excited about every little "oops". Even the little "oops"'s are wearing thin on the Vet Resident. She has a tendency to get freaked out about little things, but I think she's learning not to get freaked out unless I get freaked out. Honestly, I don't have the energy to get freaked out. Freaking out is exhausting.
I'm about as calm as the Vet "Attending" (if you want to call him that). I saw him for the first time in a little over a week on Thursday. He called me the "Instrumentation Elf". We have a system, and within it I'm completely ubiquitous and anonymous. They text me when there's legs to strain gauge, I go over and gauge them, then I go back to the test or to my office. In and out. No fuss, no muss. It's almost like I'm not even there....they leave me legs (like cookies) and I gauge them and bolt (like Santa leaving presents). He wasn't even worried that there was something wrong. He figured that everything was going as well as it could until he heard from me. He's right.
This whole process has me thinking about how it's worth picking your battles. Yeah, gauges have failed, legs haven't quite been set correctly, and the list goes on and on; but if I got even a little bit upset about every little thing that went wrong, I'd be even more exhausted than I already am.
Brings me to discuss another battle that should have been wisely chosen....but wasn't.
There's a GSA Referendum coming up, and as GSA Council Chair, it also makes me CRO for the referendum aka a lot of work at the worst possible time.
Long-story-short: There was a misprint in the Sheaf; student in charge of campaign panicked; asked me how the problem should be solved. Frankly, the Sheaf's inability to check facts or proof-read is not our problem.
My proposed solution - Write them a letter, tell them they fucked up and move on.
I told the student that this would be done, and no more...because it's not worth getting excited over. She panicked - "What if people vote on the wrong day? Should we put up posters? Send a mass e-mail? Change the referendum date?"
I told her to STFU and CTFD (calm the fuck down)....but not in that many words. That would get me into trouble.
True her concerns were warranted, but this wasn't worth picking a battle over. An oversight on your part does not make an emergency on mine. It was a problem worth solving, not a problem worth wasting energy and getting excited over.
Funny how my life seems to overlap itself....like an after school special. Weird.
POI: they can't vote on the wrong day, the vote page only appears when the referendum is on.
ReplyDeleteWe could ask the uni to put in a false vote page (which would not actually accept vote information, but sits in the same place that the vote page would be to let students know they were at least in the right place) that turns up on the "wrong" day and says "there was a misprint in The Sheaf, the referendum date is "xxx" as per that annoucenment on "yyy" we apologize for the inconvenience. Please log in to on "xxx" and vote at that time."
now its the ICT or ITS problem, or whatever division does that.
FTFY ;)
Although helpful, your suggestion doesn't quite solve this problem. The date The Sheaf originally printed was the 28th...the day AFTER the actual referendum. If people actually read that POS, they would have missed it...by about 24hrs.
ReplyDeleteImma do mah job and spam everyone on Monday the 25th. Memories may be short, but that of a Grad Student's is shorter.