Maybe I'm too cranky to be a good department chair...

This week we got some sad news...

When I came to BNCC, the department secretary had been here for eons. She died suddenly this week. She'd been retired for at least 5 years.

Personally, I find it sad in a pretty abstract way -- her retirement should have been longer etc...

I'm probably not more sad because she barely acknoweldged my presence.. She wasn't rude, but she also didn't do anything to help the newbie faculty member..

I suppose that is because she was too busy helping some of the others -- those same others who are currently asking a lot of her successor.

Which is why I get kind of irritated when those others expect ME to coordinate the memorial stuff... really, folks. She saved you a heck of a lot of time by typing your crap, running your scantrons and doing a lot of the stuff I did for myself and STILL do for myself.

Why don't YOU do it -- and I'll slip some cash in the envelope... because, I think she did help me call someone to un-jam the copy machine once in my first year... that's got to be worth something.

yea -- maybe I'm too cranky for this job, but -- if so -- bite me.

updated to add: Since I had to go to the grocery store anyway, I decided that my part would be satisfied by buying a nice card for others to sign. That's enough... 10 minutes in the sympathy card isle and a few bucks...