Of two minds...

I have to submit my final grades tomorrow.

I received another "nasty gram" from the guy who earned a C and wants a B. He is arguing that he deserves the 5 point (well, actually, it's 6.5 point) bump up.

Because I was more lenient than I claimed I was going to be in the syllabus, and he didn't happen to benefit from that leniency. And he sent me all kinds of presumptuous "advice" on what I should do in the future.

And I'm of two minds about this.

Part of me wants to say, "Hell, no. This guy is being an a-hole. He screwed off in lab, he spent lots of time sitting around while his "girlfriends" did the work, he didn't even SHOW UP for one pre-lab one day and didn't know what we were doing, he walked out of class when he'd decided he'd had enough. And when he didn't like his grade, he used vague accusations and complaints of unfairness as his first tactic."

But another part of me says, "It's 1.5 percentage points. Give him the damn B; it will get him out of your hair and out of your life."

Except, then the tough side of me says: "But if he's in your stats class come fall, then he'll think he can roll you for what he wants."

And then the wimpy side says, "Yeah, but if he hates me and has it in for me, I'm going to have to massively document every point I take off of his assignments."

And the tough side of me says: "Why should you care?"

And the wimpy side of me says: "Because I have no life outside my job, and when my job is going badly and I'm unhappy in it, nothing makes me happy."

So I don't know...do I roll over and let this guy feel like he "won" and maybe become even more obnoxious in the future, or do I expend my tiny remaining stores of emotional energy on fighting this?

I wish I had some input from a colleague but everyone else was gone the end of last week when this reared its ugly head.

For the record, here's what he earned:

71% on the final (25% of the grade)
75% on the in-class tests (29% of the grade)
72% on the contested paper/presentation (18% of the grade)
and a 92% in lab, which was 27% of the grade. And I was generous on grading labs; I was with EVERYONE because I had very little time.

I might also note that I accepted some of his labs late, even though I claimed in the syllabus I would not, because as much as I hate accepting late work, sometimes it's easier than dealing with the whining that results.

I've totaled and re-totaled those numbers and I keep getting a 78.6% - not high enough to justify a bump-up especially for someone who projected such a bad attitude during class.

So I don't know. I have to decide by 10 am tomorrow morning if I'm going to wimp out or be tough. Because if I'm tough and then someone above me tells me I have to roll over, then it's a bigger headache to deal with.

Sometimes I wonder if the principle is even worth is. It seems so often the smarmy, complainy, "I don't care that I have a bad attitude, I still deserve it" people rule the world. Why should I be the lone figure standing in front of the tank?


I just don't know. This whole episode has made me question myself, question whether I'm any good as a teacher, question whether I even still want to be doing this.

The sad thing is, I can't think of another job I could do that wouldn't involve dealing with a lot more people who want a lot more than they actually deserve. (Retail, waiting tables are out. Working for an agency dealing with the public is out.)