bailed!

You know, there's something terribly ironic about someone calling you up to tell you they have to bail on something they promised they'd help you with (with no good or earth-shattering reason) and then PRACTICALLY IN THE SAME BREATH asking you to do something for them.

And yes, I said yes.

Because it's a case where saying no really wouldn't hurt the person who bailed on me, it would hurt other people.

But it frustrates me when someone calls me up to bail on something they were going to do, and then them essentially tell me, "I guess you'll need to find someone else to do it, then."

NO NO NO NO. On the planet I come from, when you cannot fulfill an obligation - and it is not because you are in ICU, trapped in a bear trap, imprisoned, or otherwise in a position where your calling other people on the phone and asking them to take over for you is impossible - it is your duty to find a replacement. Especially when I'm busier than you.

(I did manage to twist the person's arm enough so that by the time they hung up, they were saying they'd "try" to find a replacement. I wanted to pull the Yoda line - which I normally hate - "Do, or do not. There is no "try"" on them, because I know for some people "try" is code for "I'll call one person and if they say no I'll give up but you can't be angry with me because I did fulfill the definition of "try."")


This is just getting to be the part of the semester where I have to suck stuff up and try not to be bitter about it. But when you're schedule's so tight you have to make sure to work in 5 minutes in the middle of the day when you don't have to be somewhere (so you're sure to have a time to pee), it's really hard not to get angry at someone for flaking, and then telling you you need to cover for their flakage.

I also received a borderline-illiterate e-mail message from a student asking about handing homework in late. It was "dun," she promised me, but she wasn't going to make it to class.

I try to be nice and cut people slack but I find when I need a little slack - like more time to get grading done or something - I don't get a whole lot from the students. It's just another little double standard in life: I should be eternally happy to accept late homework, but I don't DARE let the fact that I have a life outside school get in the way of getting those homeworks graded and the grades posted on the class website within 24 hours.

(To my credit: most of the time I DO. But sometimes, stuff just comes up. I wish people realized that.)