I don't have a cubby hole in the mail room. I made sure of that a long time ago. Somebody screwed up ordering the name plates and left me off the order. I wasn't assigned a box for the office lackey to put memoranda from the office chair and the heads of various committees who do things of dubious worth.
Not that I care about staying informed. I don't care, and there are plenty of respectable people who feel as I do. Several years ago, the Religious Studies department invited a monk from an order of the Bhekuli Biya religion to address campus faculty. I don't remember much of the lecture except that he was rather loosely dressed in orange. I do recall the monk speaking about frog marriages (Wind in the Willows?) and something about Mandooka Parinaya (or something like that. I've been meaning to look that one up. I think Dr. Byrd Ivies may be a carrier).
Okay. It's coming back to me. The thrust of the lecture was that ignorance is next to godliness. I can get behind that.
Unfortunately, my will to ignorance gave in to curiosity. After I placed my syllabi under a stack of papers on the department secretary's desk, I went to the faculty mail room to root around the faculty cubby holes. I wanted to see what the department was up to while I was away.
The only other person in this department who has such low regard for what happens in the department is our permanent lecturer. She isn't subject to performance reviews, reprimand, or the usual three-year contract renewal. She is a walking, talking equivalent of a benign disease. She has been here almost as long as I have, and she will probably be here after I leave. She was hired as a graduate assistant. Somebody thought that she was cute and nice to have around, so she scored that position.
Her box had at least five memos from skinny Dr. Blipps, the department chair. The latest one announced the annual faculty Christmas party. Another wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and one dated a few weeks before that one reminded everyone of the upcoming Awareness Month. There was also a reference to "Celebrating Disability at Work Day".
Whoa. Maybe that was what all the singing was about when I visited. I'm glad I missed it. There are people in the department whom I really don't want to see when they let it all hang out.
I wish that the people who come up with the special days would just print a calendar with all of these weird awarenesses so I can plan to be involved in a car accident or develop food poisoning that day. At least, I can have a valid excuse not to participate in the celebrations.
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