I am finally in the mood to do a little catching up. I know that I have been woefully derelict. First, I have to tell you about the most vivid dream that I had two nights ago. One thing that we face as academic administrators is our faculty's surprising inability to read their email, or if they do read it, to process what it actually says, rather than what they fear or believe it says. Seriously, in a department of people whose raison d'etre is language and texts, the degree of misreading and misinterpretation is strikingly odd. In the dream, my co-chair and I have decided that the only remedy for this problem is to hire a departmental town crier. The dream focuses on our discussion of what uniform this person should wear; the fact of his or her essentialness to departmental functioning is unquestioned. I can picture it now: "Hear yea, hear yea. Departmental meeting scheduled for first Thursday in November will now he held on the second Thursday in November..."
Of course, my Russian colleague pointed out the fatal flaw in my nocturnal delusion -- it presupposes that the faculty are in their offices to hear the town crier.
Second update. Monday I weathered an event that drew on all my social skills. Quite exhausting. Back up three weeks and I am at my desk when my phone rings. It is the secretary of muckety muck administrator who "wants to schedule a drink with you." Strange, but OK. We confer on dates and some mention is made of notification on final date once my Dean has also been invited and agrees to a date. Receive email with confirmation of the drink which is to take place at an off-campus restaurant at 5pm. I wonder vaguely why and what this about. Perhaps it is a crowd of people, but I sense not from the secretary's communications. So, I head over, arrive first and duck into the loo. I emerge and can see that someone is seated out of direct view on the patio so I go outside and see my Dean. He looks at me and says "Jane, what are you doing here?" I reply that I am having a drink with muckety muck. He says "I'm having a drink with muckety muck. I didn't know you were joining us." With perfect timing, Muckety Muck appears, looks at me and says, "Who are you?" Awkward. Some recapping of the history lets us determine that the secretary (who MM tells us is legendarily inept) probably thought I was the Dean's secretary (she is also called Jane). This does not explain why she called my direct line and phrased her request as "MM wants to schedule a drink with you." I, of course, wanted to bolt, but was entreated to join them for a drink which I polished off hastily so that I could then retreat...hastily.
