My top 10 Blue Blahs with a dollop of PTSD and a
dash of sardonic wit, yet, veraciously pure, absolutely
I thought it would be good to get the sardonic out of the way ASAP so I can then try to publish good seasonal cheer as the Xmas countdown is taking place. Even when I rant – about what I dislike, won’t tolerate, injustices I perceive, experience and bear witness to, and those I despise to the depths of my soul – I know that there are millions out there without health care or without decent healthcare, without decent employment or are unemployed. without homes or are losing them – and desperate and worse. So, I try to make sure, as I have always tried to make sure, that as I go about my rants, I don’t forget about their woes.
On with my list of Blue Blahs.
Blue Blahs:
1) The President’s siccing a dean on you. You survive the first volley but review the tactical alert protocol – more Blue Blahs.
2) The Provost siccing a dean on you. You survive that volley but wonder if this is a tag team libretto? More Blue Blahs. Tactical Alert protocols reviewed.
3) An assistant dean emails you she’s coming to a department meeting to denounce you and tell everyone that you’re on drugs. You survive that volley. She is subsequently dispatched to a CUNY limbo. But you remain on tactical alert. Blue Blahs, nonetheless.
4) Colleagues’ Mobbing/Rant Sessions for Humiliation (lots of volleys here but you survive). But you’re on tactical alert. More Blue Blahs.
5) A phony Violent in the Workshop Complaint filed against you for refuting a BFL by your department chair. You survive. Go on the offensive. Remain on tactical alert. More Blue Blahs.
6) A phony Violent in the Workplace Complaint filed against a department member for just showing up to a department meeting – and all you can do, in the short term, is pay witness to the academic mugging. More Blue Blahs.
7) A PSC Grievance Officer advising you that you have to put up with the abuse. Uh oh. Tactical Alert. Tactical Alert. More Blue Blahs.
8) The PSC Hunter College Chapter Chair trying to intimidate you because she doesn’t like your opinion. You whip out a bigger camera, Nikon DSLR, announce to the meeting at hand, “I can top that,” and take pictures of her taking a picture of you. A dean alleges that this is evidence that you were acting in a menacing manner at the department meeting. Tactical Alert. Tactical Alert. More Blue Blahs.
PSC Chapter Chair loses her cool and, in true character, tries to intimidate a Colleague by pointing a teenie-weenie digital camera at him.
8) Rogue department members (or their surrogates) invading your classes, your office, your personal space. You wisely don’t smack them upside the head – yet! – but you go on Tactical Alert. Tactical Alert. Blue Blahs.
9) The tedium of documenting all of the above because you worry “everyone” will thank you nuts because this is Hunter College, which gets good reviews from The Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Reports).
10) Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
More about this later.
Gregg Morris, who teaches in the Department of Film and Media Studies, Hunter College, City University of New York. And remains on Tactical Alert.
Tags: Academic Bullying, Andrew Lund, Arnold Gibbons, Bernard Stein, Billy d Herman, campus bullying, Carolyn Kane, Greggory w Morris, Gustavo Mercado, Isabel c Pinedo, Ivone Margulies, James Roman, Joe McElhaney, Joel Zuker, Karen Hunter, Kelly Anderson, Larry Shore, Martin Lucas, Mick Hurbis-Cherrier, New York Healthy Workplace Advocates, Peter Parisi, Ricardo Miranda, Robert Stanley, S3863/A4965 – The NYS Healthy Workplace Bill, Shanti k Thakur, Steve Gorelick, Stuart Ewen, Tami Gold, Timothy Portlock, workplace bullying