Challenge and Support

Pop quiz! Which of the following options would you call “a meeting”?

1. A group of 2-20 people in a conference room discussing relevant topics.
2. An online group chat with colleagues from across the country.
3. Calling and leaving someone instructions via voice mail while they are away at a staff retreat.
4. All of the above.

If you answered “All of the above” you could work here!

Apparently that meeting I had “earlier in the week” was the voice mail message left on my phone on Thursday while I was out of the office. Fortunately, it wasn’t too important. It was just a task that had to be completed by noon on Friday for which I got a few frantic emails about on Friday morning before I had the chance to get through all 14 of my voice mails left for me from the previous day.

I mean, no big deal. Right?

Ladies and gentlemen… communication. It’s not my strongest area. In fact, it’s what I would call a weakness of mine. I own that, and I let people know it. It’s funny that I can effectively communicate to others the fact that I am terrible at communicating information to others.

What was the definition of irony, again?

I can accept that many other people struggle with communication, also. But please do not make your crisis my emergency by throwing me the ball last second and passing that off as having told me about it “earlier in the week.”

I’ve been here for a year now, so I’ve learned the ins and outs of working with the people around here. I know many of their strengths and areas that need improvement. I’m ok with weaknesses. I would be a fool to think that I am the only one with them. I’d also be a fool to think that everyone should accept all my faults with a smile without me accepting theirs. We’re all going to frustrate our coworkers from time to time. It happens! You can’t stop it! You can only hope to see it coming and deflect it in a way that does as little collateral damage as possible.

It’s about to get nuts around here as the students move in this week. There is still so much to do, but I am very excited about it. One thing my co-worker in my building and I rely on is constant and effective communication. We have our struggles, to be sure. In the world of Myers-Briggs, I am an off-the-chart P, and she is an anally-retentive J from which there is no escape (I smell a sitcom!). But we make it work. I know she needs information well in advance, in bullet-point lists, and she knows I have to be reminded of things twice a day for 2 weeks leading up to an event, and 3 times on the day of the event. It works, and we trudge through it. It may not always be fun, but it seems to work for us.

So this summary is for her:

• A meeting isn’t a voice mail.
• Don’t make your crisis my emergency.
• Miscommunication is inevitable.
• I’m a mess to work with sometimes. Beware.

Good luck to everyone out there preparing for the beginning of the school year! Stay tune for more antics!

I like to think I have a decent vocabulary.  I don’t speak in what I would consider to be “simple sentences.”  Sure, my writing can, at times, have little variety, and very few words with more than 3 syllables.  What I do like about my vocabulary, though, is that I know synonyms.  In my opinion, even if you know a fancy word, excessive use of that word only makes you sound dumb.  Yeah, you know one $5 word.  That doesn’t mean you have a wide vocabulary, friend.  It just means you know one word and can’t manage to find any other way to express that one thought.

I remember someone once telling me that swear words show nothing more than a lack of creativity.  The way I see it, consistent use of your limited “fancy” vocabulary only shows a lack of a desire to be creative.  You’re educated.  Show it.  Learn a few new words.  Sign up for a word-of-the-day email.  Anything!  Just expand!

My challenge to myself, and to you is this: Don’t be complacent with your vocabulary.  Don’t sound like an idiot in your committee meetings with your constant use of the word “cognizant.”  Sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable to say “aware” or “conscious.”  You won’t sound any less educated because you choose a word that you learned in 3rd grade.  I promise.  So long as you use proper grammar, I promise you’ll get by just fine.

Trust me on that one.  Grammar is key.

Now, do me a favor and don’t judge the grammar of this post.  Do as I say, not as I do.

Crazy Old Sorority Lady

There are many “unique experiences” that come with working in Greek Life. One of said experiences is having to work with chapter advisors. For those of you who don’t have the “pleasure” of working with this group, let me enlighten you. Chapter advisors are alumna/ae members of fraternities and sororoites who volunteer their time to their respective organization by advising current chapter officers on various aspects of chapter operations. That’s cool, right? Well, let’s play out a fairly common scenario in another functional area. How about residence life? Imagine that you’re trying to work with one of your resident assistants on an issue that they’re having with some of the residents on her floor. You spend your time coming up with a solution that is very developmental in nature, and as the RA walks away, you think to yourself, “Wow, I did a pretty good job there.” So, you send your RA on her way, and when she returns to her room, she has a missed phone call. Said phone call is from a woman who was an RA in your building about 30 years ago. This woman has no training in student development theory, and she still thinks of your hall in terms of how things “used to be” and dispenses her advice accordingly. After talking to this former RA, your RA decides to follow the new advice, and all of your good developmental work goes out the window. Oh, and as you’re mourning your failed attempts, this former RA calls to tell you the superior advice she dispensed and gives you some advice on how you should be doing your job. On many days, THIS IS MY LIFE. When I took this job, they didn’t tell me many things, and one of them was that I was going to have to deal with a very involved and opinionated bunch of chapter advisors. I’m also pretty sure this information was withheld from me on purpose.

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I know I told myself (and you, to an extent) that I was going to post updates here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I got an email tonight and I just had to pop in with this little post.  It may explain why things are a bit wonky here next week, as well.

Oh, I just wish I could tell you about the crazy things going on around here right now. Put simply, I’m wearing my walking shoes today, and making sure I find a nice warm coat, because I am going to be spending several quality hours going door-to-door at the on-campus apartments.

Ladies and gentlemen, let this be a lesson to you: keep a close eye on your contractors.

For the record, nothing bad has happened here, and it’s highly unlikely that anything bad would have happened. It’s just that a small oversight has now put us in an awkward position for the next few days.

Every day here brings the potential of interacting with parents, upper-level administrators, or parents. So it’s understandable that the idea of a “casual day” just doesn’t happen too often. The exception to this rule, however is staff retreat. Glorious, glorious staff retreat. That one day that we all seclude ourselves in some meeting room for 8 hours (or more, if you’re really special).

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