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New Day Cafe: Self-Evaluation [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-23
Good morning, Newdists! My brain is elsewhere this morning, so I apologize. At work, we have to do these elaborate self-evaluation documents, and I’ve procrastinated long enough. Today is the day to work on it.
When I was hired, some of the first colleagues I met were explaining the self-evaluation process to me, and one of them said, “You remember how much BS you had to load into your cover letter when you applied for this job? Just do the same thing with this.” And that’s pretty much right. Which is not to say anybody lies—we just finesse. I’m sure you understand.
Since I’m not going to be able to say any of this in the actual document, here is my raw, unedited self-evaluation:
I sucked. I don’t even remember the official goals I set at the beginning of the year. I spent about 90% of my energy worrying about the state of the country and the remaining 10% trying frantically to keep up with basic work tasks.
I’ve procrastinated all year. In one class, there is an assignment that was due a month ago that I haven’t finished grading yet. I try to buy their forgiveness with donuts.
I literally forgot that one of my classes was starting until the morning it started. That was a career milestone!
I started the year with a bunch of ideas for how to change up my lectures. I’ve implemented none of them because doing so would require energy (see above).
The sound of the Outlook email notification spooks me to the point where I keep my laptop muted at all times. My inbox is a disaster zone. I’m contemplating the use of ChatGPT to reply to emails.
I’ve been a bad colleague in that I’ve really phoned it in on my committee work. I’m trying to summon the energy just to teach—how am I supposed to do committee work on top of that?
I’m farther behind in the lecture schedule than I’ve ever been. At this rate, we’ll be lucky to make it to Reagan this semester.
But, I have to say, I can still put on an entertaining class. Maybe now more than ever, because I’m out of fucks to give, and the students seem to enjoy that. And I enjoy them back. Sometimes I’ll walk into class thinking I have no energy, but they somehow lend some of theirs to me. A student approached me after class last Thursday and told me she wishes all of her professors were like me. That was very sweet of her, but I couldn’t help but think, “Awww, no you don’t.”
In short, I’m a hot fucking mess this year. I don’t know if I met my goals, because as I said above, I don’t remember what goals I set. I’m sure I did, though. I might have to do some finessing.
To conclude, I forgive myself for all of the above. Like everybody else, I’m just trying to survive this year. I try to make up for it by giving my students lots of grace. We all need it nowadays! I do still love my job, even if I have to manually remind myself of it daily.
New Day Cafe is an open thread!
Share what’s on your mind this morning
From belinda ridgewood and our friends at the Inoculation Project:
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