tags: exams


The Holiday is Over

UWE

The girl bunnyhops off the pavement just as the bus is pulling away. The bus goes to overtake and she throws her arm out, swerving across in front of us without so much as a backward glance. She nearly dies under the wheels, a crushed mangled mess of limbs and bicycle, her cycle helmet little help against the weight of the vehicle. But the driver slams on the brakes, bangs his fist on the horn and shares some choice expletives as he spares her life for today. Somehow I don't think she is long for this world.

I return from my exciting week (Canoeing, Gardening, Feasting) refreshed, with a bicycle that HAS a chain and gears that work and lots of enthusiasm for work. My last couple of days before the holiday were spent purging and taking ownership of my office (MY office), I must have got rid of at least half the old crap (Windows 3.1 manuals; how to use email; Graduation photos from 1999 etc) and now have a nice clear desk to rest my feet on. The usual full inbox keeps me occupied until after lunch and I think I'm getting a handle on what needs doing, I feel like I've hardly been in work at all these last few months.

So the summer exams are nearly over and have surpassed all expectations thus far. Surprisingly little has gone awry, the usual odd labelling of coversheets, missing answer books and large print question papers. Some students complain that they don't understand the questions and the Head of School tells them only to answer half the paper. It turns out that the questions are fine and the students just didn't go to any lectures. Our student who is allowed to take his answers into the exams with him complains because the 100% extra time we have given him was inclusive of breaks, and yet in a six hour exam he only manages eight pages.

I should be feeling more like a Manager now this is my Actual Proper Job. Whenever my guys ask me for work to do, I really don't have any to give them. They've already done all the tedious repetitive jobs that I didn't want to do. I'm back in more of a trouble-shooting supervisory role, which on one hand is great, because you just sort of get given easy work by everybody and on the other hand is terrible because you have to make sure you always have something for them to do. I have acquired another underling so I am now in charge of three.

My absences seem to have strengthened New Boy's enthusiasm for his job, he is off Doing Things and Organising Stuff and I am able to sit back and actually catch up with all the things I was supposed to be doing all year. Like writing minutes from September, that sort of thing. I suspect he is getting a bit carried away as he launches into a tirade about one of my other team 'members', who likes to do as little as possible and doesn't know the alphabet. We are going to have to have a Little Chat about not taking sick days after big parties or when you have to move house.

Oh yes, there was a small matter of having to do Jury Duty as well. Here is the lowdown on THAT debacle: I read two very good books in my two weeks in the courts, The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies, both by Scott Lynch. I actually make it INTO court twice, the first time I fail all the questions and can't be on the Jury and the second time we watch a horrific paedo-incest interview, then sit around for two days before the judge tells us we may as well go home and he'll get another Jury next week... That's me doing my Civil Duty, right there.

Submitted by dash on Mon, 01/06/2009 - 16:10




Nightmare Before Christmas

Zoo-14

Today I am the entertainment. He just stands there, stupidly pushing against the lever and wondering why nothing is happening. I shove him out of the way and my audience of three watch in amazement as I Sort Things Out. In a few minutes it is over, a quick snip with the kitchen scissors and we have milk again. The whole experience is so exciting that one of the audience members feels the need to mention it later on, as he comments on the angle of the cut - the milk has obviously been replaced again because it is different to how I left it this morning.

I have a run-in with an Academic, the facts are these: over the last month or so, I have been sending out a spreadsheet with all of the exams for January on it. My message is simple: check if your exam is on there and if it isn't, tell me so I can get it booked in! After the exam timetable is published, I discover a module that is missing. I ask the academic concerned why he hasn't given me a paper yet and why he didn't bother to check whether it existed. I DID check it he protests, I assumed it must have been moved to the summer.

(Bear in mind that:

  • Academics are responsible for their exams and when they are held.
  • If they want to move the exam, it has to go through a specific process which they sign off on.
  • This guy is WELL aware of this, not to mention the fact that he is teaching a module that ends in December, so there is no question of it having an exam in the summer.
  • This all makes me 'cross', because he is trying to blame his stupidity on me.)

    • So I just throw my toys out of the pram and walk out of the room. What else can I do? Weak protests follow me and I count to ten whilst imagining gruesome tortures. Later, it is all resolved and he has sheepishly to inform his students that they actually only have a few weeks, not months to prepare.

    This week I have been doing some serious fire-fighting, learning what it really means to be responsible for other people's jobs as my current temp colleague goes to America for Christmas and leaves me deep in the proverbial. All week I am tormented with cries of blame and disappointment as I try to make the best of a bad job. My ACTUAL job goes out the window as I struggle to right all of his terrible wrongs and at least get some exams ready in time for the 2nd week after Christmas. It is so intensely tragic that I dream of the exam papers and have a revelation about how it should have been done. I am only slightly pleased to know that my bizarre night-time imaginings will make it into the procedures at work.

    This week, I have been mainly listening to Damage Done by Dark Tranquillity. Its anger centres me.

    And yes, the excitement continues apace, I learn that one of my Facebook friends (this will teach me) has grassed me up to someone who used to work here so I have been forced to edit STB just in case (see below). Here we have Sensitive Censorship in action folks, despite the fact that only a very few people will be aware of who and what I am talking about, it appears the internet is a tricky beast... So... I AM SORRY. Doesn't really affect the story anyway - it's all in good spirit, right? I think she is somewhat mollified to hear that the exams have been such a nightmare compared to Graduation, at least there is some justice in the world.

Submitted by dash on Fri, 19/12/2008 - 10:59




Results

The rain drums down outside, coming down harder than ever. I'm struggling to concentrate, they've been talking about the same student for half an hour now. Someone who has chronic reasons for not being here, for not doing well. Serious reasons. One of the academics has taught her. He says she is the most disengaged student he has ever taught. She has been here four years.

The argument is about whether we let her off the last few credits and give her a degree (if she wants it), or whether we make her come back next year, even though she can only get a third anyway. This would mean doing a module for a third time. Eventually reason wins over, it's just not fair to make her go through it again, a third is pretty crap anyway - what employer would want her? or rather we just want to be rid of her AND her personal problems...

Another discussion involves whether someone who was charged with rape but let off should be allowed to carry on being a student, and whether we should inform the University. The charges were dropped! Just goes to show the power of suggestion. There is also an ongoing investigation for murder but I'm not supposed to minute this.

All afternoon this goes on, my new member of staff has to sit through it for two days, I tell her she should probably practice writing some minutes too, just to stop her chewing her own arm off. Or at least spend a couple of days eating pies, girls are just TOO skinny these days...

Afterwards, it's all panicking and results and having to shuffle students around and fix disasters that we should have fixed in the summer. I am the one who writes FA and FU next to your name, if they decide that you've failed. There is a long and tedious process of click print tick click check print ok check sign click publish, which should have been over two days ago but the idiotic control freak who is supposed to be doing the signing has booked herself into meetings all day. I am supposed to be at home today, helping the GF to decorate the front room but oh no, I have to come in and wait until I'm allowed to publish.

At 1630 I manage to catch her1 and she says it's fine for someone else to check them as she won't be doing it tonight. By some miracle I manage not to strangle her there and then and resign myself to being in work past 6 for the fourth day this week.

My little helper feels bad that she has to go home, but she has been very kind and helpful this week. We'll see how she feels after I've left her with the aftermath tomorrow.

  • 1. She is on her way into a meeting with a student whose mum thinks it's a little bit unfair that we penalised him for printing out the seen exam for the wrong module and turning up to the wrong exam.
Submitted by dash on Thu, 18/09/2008 - 16:01




Musical Desks

One of our temps quits. There is a some muted rejoicing, although he was going to be replaced by this latest round of interviews anyway. His replacement will be one of our own students, with next to no experience, which is ideal really and hopefully she will be much easier to get along with. Just weird, is all.1

He quits under a cloud of minor controversy, discovering that I am his boss the moment after he tells me to fsck off! in a jokey sort of way. He quits that same evening in tears (of the crocodile variety I suspect), even though it was taken in the spirit in which it was intended (like I give a fsck). My boss says that she wishes she had set me on him before, we've had to put up with a lot of crap for quite a while now.2

The other annoying temp is coming to the end of his tenure, surprising us all by not causing complete chaos as he is the one who is packing all the exam papers together. A little bit stressed but life goes on... HIS replacement starts on Monday (thank God!) and we might actually have some people who work and care about what they do, rather than talk about films all day or wind me up by just being. Perhaps I am too hopeful?

He is very grumpy today, has been for a while, perhaps it's that I keep asking / telling him to get on and do mundane jobs for me. There is a lot more to his role, but I have been doing most of it for the last few months as he can't cope / be trusted with more than one thing at a time. There is one thing I've been trying to get him to do for weeks, it involves going through a load of boxes, taking out old stuff, putting in new stuff. I suspect that I'll be doing it myself when work finishes because it has to be done by tomorrow.

The string tightens, and frays.

  • 1. Two others also leave, but we are sorry to see THEM go.
  • 2. I slightly regret telling him about Skip The Budgie in a rare moment of us getting along. Hopefully he's forgotten.
Submitted by dash on Tue, 02/09/2008 - 08:38