So you might have read (or ignored) the editorial in the Iron Warrior. That was the level-headed reflection on this term. This is the other side of the coin. It’s unclear which one is more accurate, but it’s safe to say that it’s probably a bit of both, though I’d like to think it as more of the former. Disclaimer: Reading this might give off the impression that things were worse than they actually were. Don’t take this too seriously. The term really did go fairly well. Our future goals are certainly not impossible to reach at all. I am not truly, horribly angry at anyone. To the staff: I really do love you all, and am just about as understanding as it seems in my e-mails. Consider these as intrusive thoughts coming out at last. An end-of-term purge of emotions, nothing personal.
ARGH WHERE DID ALL OUR STAFF GO?!? Remember the days when our office was packed with more than twenty people? When you wouldn’t be able to get a seat if you arrived late? Yeah… what the hell happened? Where did everyone go? Why are there no more people?
To answer these questions I came up with more questions:
WHY YOU ALL GRADUATE? You should…come back. Quit your jobs and come write for your old school paper again. You don’t have to be grown-ups yet! We’ll take you in!
WHY YOU ALL NANOS? You and your inconvenient 8-month terms are wreaking havoc on this establishment, as more than three quarters of our current staff are going off term because of this. HAVOC, I tell you.
WHY YOU REPEAT TERMS? Why you fail? We’re losing a whole bunch of beloved people to the next year as they repeat terms and such. At this rate, Winter 2014 will be just Nancy and I. We’ll publish four-page issues. We’ll team up with whoever writes the Chevron maybe. I’ll have to do Iron Inquisition, meaning that I’ll have to talk to people. Ew.
ALSO, WHERE ARE OUR FIRST YEARS? If things continue like this, B-Soc won’t have staff to do the paper in three years or so. Enjoy it while it lasts. Get ready to say goodbye to your beloved crossword provider. But, if you’re a first or second year: come hither. We have pizza. And free C&D food. And juice. Come talk to us. Come write for us. Pls respond.
Next order of business: WHAT IN THE FRICKLE FRACKLE IS WRONG WITH OUR WEBSITE? It was faulty when I got here, and it’s just gotten worse. If anyone wants to do anything about it, please step up. I’ll try to wrestle with it but dammit guys, I’m an Enviro. Very little web experience, except with spider webs encountered in the vegetation during our field labs.
Next up, HOW DOES ONE ENFORCE A DEADLINE? You tell people a date and time, but somehow 95% of them decided that they had an unspoken two-day extension? Okay, I know there’s homework to be done, last minute things to take care of. I know how busy school is, but daaaaayummm. You’re later than the GRT. How is it that when I say Friday y’all hear SUNDAY?
Furthermore, if you’re going to be late, please give me an update, because for all I know, you’ve forgotten or don’t plan on writing it at all. This I why I hunt all of you down on Facebook Saturday afternoons, and periodically on Sunday. I don’t even have all of you on Facebook. I have to creep around.
On a similar note, get better at giving time estimates. Maybe time speeds up inside the office due to some Einstein bullshit, but something sure as hell ain’t matching up. I’ve learned that “soon” means “in a few hours”, and “by tonight” means “by tomorrow afternoon”, and therefore “by Sunday morning” means “last minute on Sunday night”. The hell’s going on?
Admittedly, I’ve been much too accommodating, and I’ll concede that that probably contributes to the repeat offenses, but I didn’t want to alienate you all during the term, especially since you’re important and we need all the staff we can get.
Next rule of business, which gets a bit sadder. I’m sure we’ve all had that experience where you’re in a group of people, and somehow whatever you have to say isn’t regarded as being worth listening to. You’ll be saying something before realizing mid-sentence that no-one is actually listening to you. Or you might get in a sentence and half before they divert their attention away and leave you hanging.
If you’ve never had that experience, LET ME TELL YOU, it sucks crusty nipple. If you’re somebody who’s prone to pulling that shit, cut it out of your personality ASAP. It kept happening during every meeting this term. Granted, it’s not THAT bad and we do get things done during the meetings, but dayum does it happen often, and dayum would we save a lot of time if this shit didn’t happen.
I don’t really mind tangents that relate the topic at hand, though at some point we have to get back to the meeting. What’s much worse are the long, loud, animated discussions about completely random things like schoolwork and entertainment. In the heat of these conversations, it’s the hella difficult to stop people without seeming like a cray cray bitch. Everyone’s at a high decibel level trying to get their word in, and if you did it too it’d be startling for everyone, especially coming from an outwardly calm person such as myself. Trust me when I say I’ve tried everything short of going drill sergeant on your asses, but these things only work for about a minute, if at all. I really should have bought a large judge’s gavel, or just yelled. That’s the problem with being quick to anger, but slow to expressing it. You get all the emotional angst, but don’t usually do much to stop it. Another person might have clocked y’all with the gave, but I value your presence too much for that.
I’m going to close this up now by reiterating the fact that this term was actually okay. No major f*ck-ups. The paper was outputted bi-weekly. It happened. I love everybody in the Iron Warrior. You all make me smile. More so when I receive your articles.
That being said, one term as EIC is enough.
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