Your MOM'S on strike

So my lecturers were all on strike today, only I still had to go in and work because I have a piece of coursework due on Friday. And I finished it today, on account of I have become One Who Finishes Things Early.

Anyway, the strike thingy you can read about here at the BBC. Also you can go to the actual Higher Education Union webpage if you like. I'm sure my Dad will be the first one to race over there, on account of he just luuuuurves him some unions. Anyway, I read some of the literature they were passing out today, and it does sound like they're getting the rubbish end of the stick. I guess last year the government said it would increase teacher salaries, only then when the academic year got started there was no change. And then the people in charge said they'd never actually promised anything. Or something.

The part I didn't know, though, was that it's not just the strike. They're also going to boycott grading student assignments and tutoring students and all kinds of stuff until negotiations work out. So it turns out I needn't have bothered getting that report in early. The only thing that concerns me a wee bit is that I'm meant to turn in my "What I'm Doing My Dissertation On" form this Friday, and I'm hoping that my dear advisor won't consider it Going Against the Union to sign the thing.

Also the funny part was that as all my lecturers were out picketing, I still had to go to this tutorial thing for my "Management and People Skills" class. Today's topic: Conflict Resolution. There's one guy in my tutorial group from the Middle East, and I get a kick out of his hard-line solutions to things: "You must make sure people are working all the time!" "You must watch your employees very carefully." "There should be no reason for people to be talking with coworkers! If they are talking then they do not have enough work to do."

The other funny moment today was when the tutorial teacher talked about conflict resolution with what she termed "awkward" (read: insane) library patrons. She even warned us of who we will generally find in the Unholy Trinity of Crazies, at least if we work in academic libraries. According to her, the most difficult library users are:

Music/Drama students, because they get all dramatic on people and forget they're not on stage;
Law students, because they forget that they're not in a courtroom (Hi, WR sweetie!);
Surgeons, because surgeons are just jerks. (Jaime, can I get a witness?)

So there you have it. And now you can go celebrate strikes by watching Newsies, where you get to see Christian Bale dance and sing like he's in NKOTB. And that, friends, is something.