Well, gosh, I clearly picked a good one to jump in on, didn’t I? Pet peeves, you say? I have them. But mine come in two varieties, personal and professional. So let’s talk about both. It will help me keep myself from losing my mind :).
Professional
1. Students who don’t read the policies for the course and then complain when those policies are applied to them (see student this evening who feels it’s incredibly unfair that he’s not earning points because he didn’t follow a required posting convention. Harsh, yes. Realistic in a down economy, oh hell yeah.)
2. Students who feel that if they complete an assignment they should receive credit for the assignment. Never mind if what they hand in has an relationship to the actual assignment; they did something they deserve credit.
3. Misspellings. I’m supremely intolerant of misspelled words (not misused words, please note) because I teach online and all their papers are submitted online. This obviously means that they’re using a computer and have access to spell check. While it won’t catch everything; it catches enough.
4. Students who like to threaten my by saying they’ll go to my boss. Okay; you do that. It won’t change the way I grade. I was hired because I’m tough and I don’t take BS, but please feel free to go complain about that.
5. Papers submitted in formats I can’t read. We have a clearly stated policy about this, yet the student always says either “I didn’t know” or “I can’t afford that expensive program and it’s not fair that you insist I use it.”
Personal
As strange as it sounds, I do have a life outside of teaching. God knows there are days when it doesn’t feel that way, what with the whole computer on my lap most days, all day. So, what’s like nails on a chalk board in my personal life? Ahh, so glad you asked.
1. People who analyze every freaking piece of food that enters their mouths (and mine). Honestly, what you do on your own time is your business. And if you want to obsess about food, that’s just fine by me. But leave my danged plate alone.
2. The perfume factories. By this, I mean the women (and men, dudes are NOT innocent of this one), who are apparently smell challenged. You do NOT need to bathe in perfume or cologne. It does not smell wonderful and, in fact, makes me wheeze so hard that I end up having asthma attacks. If you’re in the same restaurant as me and I can smell you three tables over? You bathed in the stuff. Not good.
3. People who let their dogs and cats roam free. I get that many people think that cats prefer to live outdoors (at least most of the time), but I do not appreciate your dogs and cats using my rose garden and their personal poo station or litter box. I actually watched my neighbor’s dog pee on one of my rose bushes. I nearly killed them both.
4. People who assume I’m some sort of religious fundamentalist because I’m choosing to homeschool my kids. Or assume that my kid doesn’t get adequate socialization. Or think that he can’t possibly be normal because he doesn’t go to school. He’s an extremely bright child who has varied interests and makes friends easily. A tad bossy, but who isn’t at four?
And now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel much better. Guess it’s time to go grade some papers for me. For you? Go check out the other posts at Girl Talk Thursday you won’t regret it.
Adjunctmom's Blog 
I can’t imagine how stressful it must be to be a professor. The entitlement that is so rampant with PRECIOUS SNOWFLAKE STUDENTS who probably got pushed straight through school without ever being told they have a flaw and I have no idea where I was going with that, but it was hard enough to have those people as ROOMMATES.
The free-roaming dogs and cats seriously just make me so angry. Don’t these people care what happens to their pets? It’s a safety hazard when they’re darting in and out of the road at night.
Glad you played along this week, and hope you come back again!
Oh, it is NOT fun teaching them, that’s for sure. My semi-cryptic tweets are usually the ones where I can’t give too much information or violate FERPA, but the gist is always, OMG I want to kill myself or a student. Seriously.
And yes, I have looked at my 4 year old son and told him if he ever pulls this shit on a college professor I will personally drag him by his ear to apologize and I won’t care how old he is at the time.
Safety hazard, health hazard. My older dog has immunity system issues. She has contracted diseases that, by rights, she should not get because she’s a “big dog.” So, those little dogs and cats running around using her space for their business REALLY tick me off because they could kill her.
True story: the crazy cat lady who lives across the way (who is now apparently also running a frat house) chewed me out within the first two months we lived her because MY dog scared her cats out of MY BACKYARD and could have caused one of the cats a heart attack. Yes, you read that correctly, my backyard. After the shock wore off, I patiently explained to her that it is Sam’s backyard, she doesn’t like cats, and if the neighbor wished to safeguard her cat’s health perhaps the cat should LIVE INSIDE and not wander into a dog’s backyard.
After about six months, the cats learned not to come in the backyard for any reason. They still like the front yard, but you just don’t see them in the back anymore :).
“I can’t afford that expensive program and it’s not fair that you insist I use it.”
That is why almost every school has a library and/or computer center with all the basic stuff you need on it, kid.
I have the dog/cat crapping in our flower beds pet peeve too – It drives me insane!!
Great List!
Every single one of those professional peeves – and then some – are EXACTLY why I can’t teach. I would be stabby all the time.
What, you mean you’re not going to SPOON FEED me anymore?!? *eye roll* Wake-up calls suck for a lot of people!
I can’t stand people who bathe in their perfume/cologne, either.
I had a customer today who was doused with perfume, and she wouldn’t let me leave (I tried three times to walk away AND had a fellow employee try to rescue me). Then I started to sneeze, which offended her: she told me to go away so I didn’t get her sick! I was happy to oblige, but I still kinda wanted to punch her.
I love how when you sneeze or cough in response to their over-perfuming, you’re the one who is inconsiderate. Grrr.
Welcome to GTT. I seriously love Thursdays for this reason alone (ok .. well also it IS the day before Friday, there’s that. But still). Next, totally sympathize on the teaching issues. My first real teaching gig was as a TA for a graduate-level research course. My last teaching gig was an undergrad human development course. SHOOT ME PLEASE. I was *ahem* ill-prepared for slack ass students and their weak excuses for ANYTHING. Lastly, OMG! I wouldn’t call you a freak for homeschooling; I would call you a masochist. I mean, I’m sure you little ones are ADORABLE, but you get my vote for sainthood. Teach for a living AND teach your own. GAHHHHH!
Yeah, there’s something masochistic about it, I admit. But, honestly, I love teaching small numbers of small people so much more than teaching large people that it’s fun.
I couldn’t do a full day of elementary school with a full class of students, but homeschooling the short man and his sidekick? That’s a piece of cake.
I’m still ill-prepared for lazy students and I’ve been doing this for something like sixteen years.
Thanks for the welcome. This was fun. I’m definitely doing it again!
Ok, my fave was #1 under Personal. Related to people who analyze and calorie count every morsel: people who smell every bite of food before allowing it to enter their mouths. CREEPY.
They’d be my relatives, too. I have flat out told a couple of them they are not allowed to make comments OF ANY KIND about food and my daughter.
One generation of warped food perspectives is quite enough. Seriously.
It always drives me nuts when I’m in a class and we get to the end of the semester and someone gets upset because they’ve suddenly realized that they didn’t do something very important and instead of taking responsibility for having missed it, they beg and plead with the professor for special treatment. Meanwhile the rest of us followed all the directions! Unless that person’s excuse is something like “I missed half the classes because I was in the hospital for a life-threatening illness,” expecting special treatment after they didn’t follow directions is just ridiculous.
Amen to #4! And I do believe that cats don’t really like to live outdoors as they live their lives in fear all the time, even if they have a home to come into. I like to tell myself that anyway, because I have two indoor only cats.
It is very possible that your child might turn out to become a more stable adult by NOT going the traditional school route.
Thanks, Neil! I sure hope so.
Hope things are okay in your neck of the woods. We’re thinking of you and your father-in-law.