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Originally Posted by martinguerre
You're right about that. Get her fired. Letting it go does no one any favors. Someday, students are going to have a flake of a professor because she learned to get away with this...she's going to crash and burn her professional career when she is found out...
I recall you saying that you feel more comfortable asserting authority where you know you ought to have it...in the classroom and such. I hope this is one of those times...you're well within your rights to lay down the law. I've been a TA before, and while i pulled some shit to keep my own work on track, i'd never have dreamed of being this useless.
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In class with students and in my home with guests, yes, I have little problem with being assertive, as those are places where I'm granted an automatic measure of authority and because they're comfort zones where I understand the rules because I make the rules. I've been assertive here, carefully going over with her exactly what I expect of her, and asking her to start taking care of the work she's supposed to be doing.
It's weird, in that she's not doing anything wrong, exactly, and she's a good worker when she's here, she's just not here nearly as often as she should be. It already feels a little bit strange to be getting on her as it is, as she's always working or eager to get started when I do see her, so I end up having to interrupt her doing her job to complain about her not doing her job.
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Originally Posted by abaya
Thrash that girl. I mean it. Do NOT let her get away with that bullshit. TAs may have it rough sometimes, but this girl sounds like she doesn't have anything together and hardly deserves that free ride. She needs to EARN that damn salary...
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Yeah, I have sympathy for her. I was teaching full-time while doing my graduate work and had to pay for my master's, and thought I got a grant for the doctoral work, I still did the work while working full time. So I know how hard it is to balance an education workload with graduate work.
What I'm most afraid of is that if I do go to whomever I need to go to to get a new TA, if that's even possible at this point, if it'll reflect badly on me because it'll seem like I don't know how to deal with a TA. Which would more or less be the truth, given how much work I'm getting out of her, and how little effect my pep talks have had, but I don't want to go advertising that I can't get her to do her work.
Heck, I'm so new to this, I wouldn't even know who to talk to about it. She just showed up at my office one day and said, "Hi, do you know if Dr. Nakamura will be back soon?" After I went throught the standard "I'm Dr. Nakamura you can call me Gilda it's my married name I'm 29 children's literature" introduction, I found out she was my new TA.
I don't know, it isn't hurting anyone but me, and really all it means is I have a few more hours work each week, at least right now. I am concered that when I have to start making student teacher visits at schools in a couple of weeks that she won't be there to cover the classes, which would be a major problem.
Damn. Having a TA is supposed to make my job easier, not more difficult. I'm going to give her this one last chance to show me she can do what's expected of her. I'll have a good idea when I go in tomorrow. If she's not there for our scheduled meeting, that means the work didn't get done; if she's there, that'll mean that everything's finished.
Gilda