There is very little that’s worse than dealing with overachieving incompetents. I have (at least) one course this semester that is organized and administered by such people. The schedule has changed no less than four times since it was officially set in stone back in December. If I would’ve bought all their required texts, I would’ve paid about $500. If I would’ve been keeping up with the required reading of said texts, I would’ve read more than 1000 pages … per week. As if I would’ve had time buying texts and reading them when I’m required to attend class every Monday for three hours as well as the required seven-hour session at least once a month on a Saturday. Luckily I haven’t bought any of the required texts, and I’ve read no more than 10 pages altogether just to get the gist of what there are going to try to discuss in our meetings. I’m now getting to the point where I have absolutely no desire to read their own submissions of their work. The requirement is to submit 2-10 pages per workshop, and the average submission has been closer to twenty pages. It would’ve been much higher if I wouldn’t have stuck to the minimum two-page requirement. That’s one requirement I can get behind! Also, there’s no reason I need to read something that hasn’t even been proofread and spellchecked. When I download their papers and open them in MS Word, my screen is filled with red squiggles under every misspelled word. Are they fucking blind? Or have they in their sheer incompetence managed to turn off this function on their own computers? Am I really asking too much for a Ph.D. student to know how to use commas properly? For my own required presentation I’ll do on the last day of the semester, I borrowed the required text through interlibrary loan, chose five pages that I’m going to introduce and talk about, and photocopied the excerpt for myself and my colleagues. Anything more would be asking too much. At this point, it should be required (and enough) to be a functional and useful human being.

There is very little that’s worse than dealing with overachieving incompetents. I have (at least) one course this semester that is organized and administered by such people. The schedule has changed no less than four times since it was officially set in stone back in December. If I would’ve bought all their required texts, I would’ve paid about $500. If I would’ve been keeping up with the required reading of said texts, I would’ve read more than 1000 pages … per week. As if I would’ve had time buying texts and reading them when I’m required to attend class every Monday for three hours as well as the required seven-hour session at least once a month on a Saturday. Luckily I haven’t bought any of the required texts, and I’ve read no more than 10 pages altogether just to get the gist of what there are going to try to discuss in our meetings. I’m now getting to the point where I have absolutely no desire to read their own submissions of their work. The requirement is to submit 2-10 pages per workshop, and the average submission has been closer to twenty pages. It would’ve been much higher if I wouldn’t have stuck to the minimum two-page requirement. That’s one requirement I can get behind! Also, there’s no reason I need to read something that hasn’t even been proofread and spellchecked. When I download their papers and open them in MS Word, my screen is filled with red squiggles under every misspelled word. Are they fucking blind? Or have they in their sheer incompetence managed to turn off this function on their own computers? Am I really asking too much for a Ph.D. student to know how to use commas properly? For my own required presentation I’ll do on the last day of the semester, I borrowed the required text through interlibrary loan, chose five pages that I’m going to introduce and talk about, and photocopied the excerpt for myself and my colleagues. Anything more would be asking too much. At this point, it should be required (and enough) to be a functional and useful human being.