Friday, May 16, 2008

Academia

So, I'm spending another Friday at work--at a university with no students. My day consists of reading email, answering questions like "Why did I get a B when everyone else got an A?" (because grades are performance based, not on how well you compare to your peers, but on how well you performed based on your previous performance. The whole Army thing.) and waiting to be handed documents to sign. I think I may have reached the end of the internet a few times.

This is about as close to in-school-suspension as an adult can get, I think. If I'm lucky, I'll see maybe two people all day.

The most exciting thing today is reading emails sent from the world's dumbest smart people, academics. It's no wonder Johnny can't read, if these dolts are the ones doing the instruction.

It all started innocently enough with a mass distro email (names redacted to protect the innocent and the mildly retar--cognitively challenged.):

In preparation for the annual power outage that is scheduled for this weekend we will shutting down all administrative PC's early Saturday morning before the outage is scheduled to begin. It is also recommended that before leaving your office for the day that you turn off any printers in your area.
If there are any questions please feel free to contact the IT Support Center.
Thank you.

I started the clock. People here are notoriously thick when it comes to understanding things like "reply" vs "Reply all" and can't look at an email sent from
"it-admin-network-clients@" to "it-admin-network-clients@" and determine that it wasn't sent just to *them* and they may need to look at the signature block on the email to see who they really need to reply to.

That notwithstanding, they did come up with some of these pearls to share with the university:
(again, names redacted)

"
What about scanners?" sent from The School of Graduate Studies and Research

"
Should we turn off our PC's or will you do that?" sent from Financial Operations office.

"I do not have the option of shutting down my computer. I can only log off. Will that suffice?" sent from Major & Planned Giving, University Relations

So I emailed the IT support center, and told them this:
You should take the names of each and every last one of these dolts and not only pull their accounts, but you should take the PCs from their offices, lest they hurt themselves when the cup-holder electrocutes them.

I'm sure there will be more to follow, I'll post as things get funnier.

--Chuck


of course, no sooner do I hit publish than we get this from the mail room:

Do we log off our meter as normal and also the package scanner?


No, power surges and outages have no effect on package scanners, postal meters, as they are run by a combination of magic, good intentions and underpants gnomes on rehabilitative training to connect to Al Gore's teh intarweb. They contain no "circuits" or "processors" that can be damaged.



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