Am I frightening?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Asher


Don't listen to Siro. Direct is best, polite protocol is a waste of bandwidth.

i wonder what makes Asher disagree with my post

Direct is great for online chats or whatever.

It is a dumb attitude in life. And it is very in appropriate for people in power positions.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
i wonder what makes Asher disagree with my post

Direct is great for online chats or whatever.

It is a dumb attitude in life. And it is very in appropriate for people in power positions.

I love it when people in power positions are direct. It lets you know what's expected clearly.

If there's one thing I hate it's passive-aggressive woman-like Ned Flanders-like politeness all the time.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Footie Mad
It's not like it's an unknown phenomenon of a teacher basing grades on irrelevant and personal factors. You already seem to be indifferent or somewhat loathsome towards the students so it's not a long stretch of the imagination to have someone less professional take such feelings into a personal arena and using the best power tool available, grading, to exact some kind of universal revenge.

You see, I feel all the students are equally inferior, and given that we grade in such a way to always end up with a similar average I don't see why they should be frightened of me. Rather, they should be frightened of the one who takes a personal interest in them. They are a faceless blur to me. Their grade will be assigned based on their assignment and test scores. Nothing else matters. At the end of the semester we place all the scores in order. We look for distinct groupings of students and assign grades to those groupings. Ones in between two grades are looked at slightly more carefully. Those who have done extremely well on the final are moved up. Those who haven't are not. We assign 200 grades in a 2 hour meeting. Do you think that Ford is making your car especially for you when you buy it?

[BeBMan]

Directness

Rudeness

Being rude is unprofessional.

[KrazyHorse]

It is a dumb attitude in life. And it is very in appropriate for people in power positions.

What a bunch of bull****. If I **** up I want to know I ****ed up so I can fix it. Not go along thinking everything's rosy until the day they fire me and I have no idea why.

Skating around issues is insulting to me. Have the balls to come out and say what you think. I'm a big boy. I can handle it.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by BeBro
Directness

Rudeness

Being rude is unprofessional.

I have never yet been rude to a student. I have, however, had students be rude to me.

[Pekka]

KH, I also feel indirectness is not so good, because simply people might interpret things wrong, so there will be poor results because someone didn't have the guts to be direct. That's unfair, I think the person who is trying their best should know how they are doing.

[KrazyHorse]

By the way, I just came into contact with this very issue. Nothing having to do with my research or teaching, but there was something I was supposed to do to help the administration of the department out. I did it, but in such a way that the guy who asked me to do it was not happy with it (something I found out later). He asked me to send him the original material I used to do what I did. I gave it to him, but I asked him why he needed it. He mumbled something about needing it for reference. Later on, I see what came out, and it was totally changed. He'd redone it completely, but had missed a lot of major things which were important.

Now not only was the final product not very good, but he's lost a great deal of respect in my eyes. I feel like he was being condescending by not coming straight out and telling me that he didn't like what I'd done, and that he's a spineless weasel who can't even give straight talk to somebody lower on the food chain than him. I can't even look him in the eyes any more. ****ing weasel.

[LordShiva]

One can be polite while being direct.

[germanos]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


What a bunch of bull****. If I **** up I want to know I ****ed up so I can fix it.

Which is what the student basically asked you.

He did use a bit more eloquent wording though .

[KrazyHorse]

It's not even like my future depends on what I did. This was a purely administrative matter, completely unrelated to my work.

I still feel crazy pissed about it. It makes me feel that this person thinks I'm such a ****ing ***** that I would collapse under truthful criticism.

Be a ****ing man and stand up for what you think. Don't be a ****ing crawling maggot who spends his days trying not to offend people.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by LordShiva
One can be polite while being direct.

Indeed.

But the directness is far more important to me than the politeness.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by germanos


Which is what the student basically asked you.

He did use a bit more eloquent wording though .

No, what he wanted to know was if I was angry with him. If I tell you that the information was on the website and you feel stupid, just say "Oops. Thanks". Don't grovel an apology to me.

[germanos]

Out of curiousity:

Is any apology 'groveling'?

[KrazyHorse]

No. Saying "sorry" would have been fine.

The part that was groveling was when he started asking if I was annoyed at him.