Visiting speaker (who has just asked to use my photocopying account to copy handouts, a request I had to decline because grad students have a copying limit and I'm nearly at mine): "Thanks for finding me someone whose account I could use. Are you joining us now for morning tea before the seminar?"
Me: "No, I'm really busy and would like to get a few things done* before your talk."
Visiting speaker: "Well, if you aren't coming for coffee, would you mind taking these and stapling each copy at the top left? [hands me her huge pile of handouts] And there's a mistake on page three: just cross out the first word on each one."
_______
* And yes, I am now blogging instead of doing any of those, but that's not the point. It's just not. Okay?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Which part of, oh, ANY OF THAT, didn't you understand?
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6 Comments:
Scholars!
of course it's not the point. How rude!
Blogger thinks the situation is "frukd", too :)
Holy shit. That is so fricking rude. grad students are not here to serve people. Why didn't the department assign someone to help the so-called scholar with this stuff? I hope you found an undergrad to pawn it off on.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one flabbergasted by this.
In the dept where I did my MA in Germany, grad students were always treated as spare minions for any passing professors: "StyleyGeek, go make me a coffee! StyleyGeek, take the bus into town and buy my wife a birthday present!" (Yes, these are real requests).
But over here the culture is SO not like that. I think maybe the visiting speaker was mightily confused about the norms.
Was the visiting speaker from another country? I can't think of anything else that could possibly explain such outrageously rude behaviour.
Well, originally. But she's been in Australia for at least 10 years now (longer, I think). So, no, it's not an explanation.
Talk to me! (You know you want to!)