Katie's sabbatical troubles lit up the compound mailbox yesterday. Here's some stuff that we were able to clip and paste into a file before the fucking HINNY flu knocked us on our ass. Hey, does anyone know what the right ratio is for Robitussin to Absinthe?
- Katie, I’m truly sorry you didn’t get to take a year off work exactly when and how you wanted it. It just breaks my heart to see you so put upon. And although you did get your homework in early, punctuality may not be the primary method of determining who gets to go on sabbatical; Michael and Ivan may have submitted their plans earlier. Sadly I do have to question your assumption that the reason your request was denied is because you are female. I can think of several other reasons for which your colleagues might have been given preference. Perhaps the Dean chose by seniority, not by most recent publication date. Budget or lack of available manpower (no pun intended) might have had something to do with it. Maybe they want you to sit on some very important committee in the spring, a task the Dean feels only you can manage. Perhaps they felt that with these two fellows gone the only way the department could hold itself together was by having you there to carry the day. Smart money says it’s because they just don’t like you. Not because you are female, but because of your personality. You’ve made it very clear that you don’t like your colleagues and don’t respect them, they can probably sense this.
- Don’t you sound like a snowflake, sweetie. You failed to make the process clear. Did you apply before the other two? Have you been at your institution longer than your colleagues? Your research is so important that it trumps colleagues who applied before you did? Listen: go to a dictionary and look up the word sabbatical. It denotes to me at least “taking a break,” like from the Latin word “to rest.” Forgive my tone, please. It arises from envy. I wish I taught some place that awards sabbaticals to colleagues who want to think about things. Where I teach, the administrators have misappropriated that (as they have with many other good things about being a college teacher). Now we have to prove or predict or lie about “deliverables” for all our “reassigned” time. We can’t take a rest to think about things. And wait, did I read that you GOT a sabbatical? You just have to wait for it. Don’t ask my colleague who has applied three times for understanding. Her first book is amazing, by the way.
- That's right, Katie. It couldn't possibly be, for example, that their requests were submitted before yours, followed a long period of service without a sabbatical, the choice was between offering a modified version of your request or outright rejecting two others, or any other mundane reason working to a different set of criteria than you believe should be applied. It also couldn't possibly be because you tend to behave like an egotistical, combative asshole brimming over with a sense of entitlement and are doing a fine job of alienating your colleagues to the point where they really don't feel inclined to make the slightest accommodation for you. No, it's just because you're a woman.
- A good friend who is a prof at another university has a nearly identical story to Kalamazoo Katie, but in that case the socially inept chair of the dept couldn't find the phrasing to obfuscate the reasons why my friend's sabbatical request was delayed by a year - 'well, so-and-so (old fart who barely publishes) also wants a sabbatical, and he hasn't recently asked for leave, so he gets it,' while my friend publishes like a fiend, just got a major research award (with oodles more money attached to it). The fact that she's a female, and she's had a maternity leave (gasp!) somehow don't work into this? I don't think so. Jerkwads. And the (male, or with adult-age children) powers-that-be fret about why academia has a hard time holding on to female profs...
- Look at the bright side, Katie. Now you have two full years that you won't have to deal with Michael and Ivan, both of whom you clearly despise. And you won't have to suffer through their slide shows when they return. And by the way, are you under the impression that you're keeping your hostility in check among your colleagues? That you save all of your contempt for the blogosphere? Well you're wrong. They can smell it on you whenever you're in the room. So cry "boy's club" all you want, but I'm guessing there's more going on than your self-serving bias will allow you to see.
- Once again the macho-centric assclowns at RYS take a perfectly reasonable complaint and turn it into a shrew-fest. Katie is voicing for a lot of us EXACTLY what's wrong with the academy. Boys club, boys town, whatever you call it. We get the shit end of the stick all the time and we're just supposed to smile and hang on. Bullshit. I read "Katie"'s real blog and she's an absolute hero to a lot of female professors, me included. You editors have once again shown your subtle misogyny by how you've treated her newest post on your pages. Shame on you.
