Bad day at work (you have been warned)

Listening to: 'False Alarm' by KT Tunstall [Eye to the Telescope]

I hate undergrads. Honestly. They are the most selfish, ungrateful, careless, irresponsible, immature subset of the human species. The only thing that separates them from chavs is that they have some grey matter between their ears...although they do a damn good job of proving otherwise. Let me explain, by telling you about my day.

Those of you who follow Scrumpy's blog will know that it's snowing today. Highest snowfall in the region for 18 years, apparently. Now don't get me wrong, I love snow. It's so white and pretty, it makes me very happy. Until I have to trudge along to work in it, that is. For those of you not familiar with snow, here's a not-so-profound fact - it turns to sludge very soon. Horrible, slippery sludge. I didn't fall today, but I did come close about thrice - twice with my camera in hand (hey, I said snow was pretty, didn't I?) and once (on the way back home) with a heavy bag of grocery shopping. But back to my day...

As part of my plan to fatten my CV up for a career in higher education (and because I needed the money for my camera), I'm doing some undergrad teaching. This involves hanging around the PC suite for two hours at a time, helping the kiddies learn how to use two technical software programmes. There were two sessions today. Both were bad in their own way. During the morning session, there was a nincompoop who kept asking the most idiotic questions on the planet.

Erm how do I do the first bit?
What do I do next?
How do I do that?

WTF...I'm here to help you when you get stuck, not to spoon feed you! You're supposed to pay attention during the lectures, fool. And maybe read the question for a change? Ugh.

So after the first session, I met up with a friend of mine and went to play about in the snow until lunch. I took so many pictures (my camera says I took 93 today)! Cambridge is so pretty. Lunch was good too, with an amazing mushroom soup and chicken kiev. Yum.

And then I left the snow and went back to the department for the 2-4 session, expecting to see 14 undergrads trying to finish up their work quickly and get back to the snow. But how many did I see? 3. Yes, a measly three. The others didn't even bother to show up. Too busy playing in the snow to remember their degrees, obviously. Now you may wonder why I'm complaining, but hear me out. They've been given four sessions for 4 questions. Now what happens when they miss one session? They suddenly have too much to do and not enough time. And then who has to help them finish the work (because this country doesn't seem to like the idea of failing people)? The demonstrators, i.e. my colleagues and I. Ugh. And to make matters worse, one of the three who did bother to show up insisted on listening to his iPod on full volume and partaking in some bid on Ebay while doing his work, and another one insisted on answering her phone every time it rang (which was quite often), even when we were teaching her! Where's the dedication, people? Double ugh.

But it gets worse. After my painful demonstration session, I went back to my office to mark some tutorial papers for tomorrow's tutorial. How many careless mistakes can one person make in one paper?!?!?!?!?! Every single bloody question ended with a "I don't know where I've gone wrong!" instead of an answer. Well why don't you look at your work for a change, you muppet?! AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was a bad undergrad, but surely I wasn't this bad?!

Oh and yes you read right...my career of choice is university education. I actually want to teach these buffoons for a living. What's wrong with me?!?!

Sigh. Rant over. I've had my echinacea and raspberry tea, and eaten an entire packet of Cadburys mini eggs, and am feeling a bit calmer now (and maybe slightly nauseas? Hmm). I shall have a hot bath, have dinner and get into bed. Tomorrow will be better. Won't it?