End of summer freak out

With classes starting next week, this week seems to be the time when everyone freaks out and starts doing completely bizarre things in the panic to finish things before the student body descends. A few words of advice.

To the admin person who decided that using a combination of bold, colored and highlighted text surrounded by clipart, would make their emails seem more important, I have news for you. None of the people you sent that to are 12-year-old gamers. We have the attention span to get through 6 lines of text without your "helpful" additions. If I wanted my email to have cartoon figures in it, I would work for Disney. In fact, on viewing the horrific text-edit vomit you sent, I'm pretty sure I just threw it out.

To Parking Services. It is completely unclear why you painted "No Parking" all over the street parking in front of the building that commuter students (including my grad students) have been using for the past 10 years to park on this side of campus. There was no hazard and the street was plenty wide enough. Further confounding the issue was your email explanation stating that those spots were closed because of the shortage of parking on campus! You get my award for the most absurdly justified stupidity of the year, and we're only just getting started. Congratulations, you set the bar impossibly high.

To the Provost's secretary. We've talked about this. Once on the phone and once over email. As much as I would like to go have a drink on the Uni's tab, I am not new faculty. I would be perfectly happy to go to your orientation mixer, but when I called to confirm, you reacted like I was trying to sneak into a VIP event when I asked if you wanted faculty who started last year to attend. WHY am I still getting your emails announcements for new faculty? I had assumed it's because no one was hired this year, making me still in the newest cohort, but this idea offended you and now you are just sending me mixed signals.

To me. Why didn't you think things through when you picked the first faculty office on the hallway? Yes, it's closest to your lab, but didn't you realize that in choosing office #1, you basically put an INFORMATION sign outside your office. Congratulations, you are now the info booth for every lost student, every touring family, every new sales rep and you are thought to know the whereabouts of every faculty member in the building at all times when students are looking for them. Not to worry, it'll just be your office for the next 25 years or so.