Freakin' A

That's just all I have to say.

I've got emails back from SEVERAL of the members of my former committee informing me (usually in gory detail) as to WHY they cannot take the chairship.

Okay, guys - so no one can be chair. So what do we do now? I am NOT falling on the sword and petitioning to rejoin the committee just so I can be chair and then have everyone complain at me that:

the meeting was at a bad time!

the meeting ran too long! (Um...if you quit FLAPPING YOUR GUMS about pointless things during the meeting, it would go faster)

you forgot my department's materials!

you voted against something my department wanted!

you didn't do things fast enough!

you set the deadline too early!

you set the deadline too late!

Seriously - I told them LAST FALL that I was quitting as chair. Reason: I had done it several years, and I had done it through a very rancorous (and ultimately futile) fight against something that was a Bad Idea but that ultimately got pushed through because people with money wanted it. It got to the point where the chairship was affecting my health - I was sleeping badly, having upset stomachs, and one time when I went in to give blood, they wouldn't take it because my blood pressure was too high.

Oh, and did I let you know I'm teaching an overload? And I'm doing volunteer work? And I'm chair of another campus committee? And I'm doing RESEARCH, which many of you humanities types do not do? And that several weeks out of the month, I am involved with EVENING meetings four nights a week - meaning that I'm home, relaxing, and trying to keep my blood pressure down perhaps 10 days out of the freakin' MONTH?

Please do not tell me a sob story about how your life is too preciously busy for you to possibly chair the committee. Especially when you've told me you "can't" meet on Fridays because you don't teach that day and you don't bother to come in to campus. Guess what, skippy? I teach Monday Through Friday and I don't have a lot of joy in thinking that you get a whole extra weekend day because of how you've gamed the system. You're not getting any sympathy from this quarter.