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My Peeve Zoo
Dec. 8th, 2008 12:54 pmFirst, a riddle:
Q. What's the difference between a Professor of Finance and a Professor of Mathematics?
A. A Professor of Mathematics will not schedule ten 8-10 minute presentations in a 75 minute class and force it to actually happen.
My group went second to last, and we had to do a ten minute presentation in only five minutes (Dr. Xu gave us the one-minute warning a quarter of the way through our slideshow). That left two minutes of time for the last group, and we ended up staying late to watch all eight minutes of their presentation. Honestly, I feel insulted. I put a lot of time into that fucking slideshow. Fifty slides, regression analyses for each security, not to mention all of my hypotheses about portfolio performance that I wanted to discuss--and I did it all. I spent a good ten to fifteen hours putting the presentation together, and the other two people in my group contributed, all told, enough to save me an extra hour of work.
All to click through in thirty seconds.
I'm going to email the Powerpoint to Dr. Xu with a passive aggressive note asking that she look at it, and express my hope that our truncated presentation will not similarly truncate our grades. By which I mean my grade.
Now, an etiquette question:
Pretend you live in a house with six of your friends, and brought a set of pots for everyone to use, but submitted them with the caveat that they be used only with wooden or plastic utensils, because metal spoons will scar the Teflon and cause their usefulness to deteriorate. You brought this up early, and offered the option of someone else bringing less cherished cookware, but found no objections.
Four months later, you find your skillet on the stove, waiting to be washed, with a metal tablespoon inside. The tablespoon is encrusted with the same food residue that is coating the skillet. There are distinct scrape patterns left in the food residue, that could have been made with the spoon, but to be fair, could also have been made with the edge of a plastic spatula. You wash the skillet. The inside is scarred. It may have been from last night, or from some other night since you started sharing it. But it definitely wasn't from before then, because you and your family have been psychologically programed to preserve your pots.
Also, you know exactly who was using it last night.
Do you say something to your friend, in hopes of preserving your other cookware from a similar fate? Or let it go, because you love the girls that you live with and don't want to look like a bitch?
Q. What's the difference between a Professor of Finance and a Professor of Mathematics?
A. A Professor of Mathematics will not schedule ten 8-10 minute presentations in a 75 minute class and force it to actually happen.
My group went second to last, and we had to do a ten minute presentation in only five minutes (Dr. Xu gave us the one-minute warning a quarter of the way through our slideshow). That left two minutes of time for the last group, and we ended up staying late to watch all eight minutes of their presentation. Honestly, I feel insulted. I put a lot of time into that fucking slideshow. Fifty slides, regression analyses for each security, not to mention all of my hypotheses about portfolio performance that I wanted to discuss--and I did it all. I spent a good ten to fifteen hours putting the presentation together, and the other two people in my group contributed, all told, enough to save me an extra hour of work.
All to click through in thirty seconds.
I'm going to email the Powerpoint to Dr. Xu with a passive aggressive note asking that she look at it, and express my hope that our truncated presentation will not similarly truncate our grades. By which I mean my grade.
Now, an etiquette question:
Pretend you live in a house with six of your friends, and brought a set of pots for everyone to use, but submitted them with the caveat that they be used only with wooden or plastic utensils, because metal spoons will scar the Teflon and cause their usefulness to deteriorate. You brought this up early, and offered the option of someone else bringing less cherished cookware, but found no objections.
Four months later, you find your skillet on the stove, waiting to be washed, with a metal tablespoon inside. The tablespoon is encrusted with the same food residue that is coating the skillet. There are distinct scrape patterns left in the food residue, that could have been made with the spoon, but to be fair, could also have been made with the edge of a plastic spatula. You wash the skillet. The inside is scarred. It may have been from last night, or from some other night since you started sharing it. But it definitely wasn't from before then, because you and your family have been psychologically programed to preserve your pots.
Also, you know exactly who was using it last night.
Do you say something to your friend, in hopes of preserving your other cookware from a similar fate? Or let it go, because you love the girls that you live with and don't want to look like a bitch?