Paint the Tiger, Carve the Swan

I think I can say that, since I used to be one.

I guess having been a teacher means I know how to spot when one isn’t really prepared, or doing their job properly, or just plain incapable.

I’ve got some teachers, both lecturers and tutors, who I don’t really have much time for.

There are a few things I really dislike. The first is obnoxiousness. I have one lecturer who is not only obnoxious, but also boring. He can spend a whole lecture teaching a tiny amount of content, and perhaps this is why he is so boring. He is also dry, and does not use examples to elaborate particularly well. His worst trait is probably the questions he asks. It is never clear whether a particular question is a rhetorical question or not. Finally, he seems to think that it is acceptable to just discard all negative feedback that he receives, as it is “probably invalid”, or the person “just has a grudge”. Never mind that you are just a crap teacher.

The next thing I dislike is when someone is teaching something they don’t really know that well. This is definitely a place I have been, having to teach stuff I didn’t really know about. I have one tutor who as much as said several times there were things he didn’t understand. I’m paying good money to go to Uni, I don’t want to waste that, or my time. At one stage, when I knew I was right about something, and he wasn’t really listening to what I was saying, I basically gave up and let him continue. I know (that with a ternary relationship total participation isn’t automatically implied), and I think now that the rest of the class thinks that it is.

My third annoyance is to do with general organisation. I hated being poorly organised when teaching, and did my best to overcome this issue. I know at times I didn’t and it really embarrassed me to be the one who was at fault. Not having work prepared ahead of schedule, not being on time, these are all things that turn off the good students, perhaps more so than the bad students!

My final gripe is about… I’ve forgotten what I was going to write next.

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Last night, after Uni, I went to the supermarket to buy a few things. BBQ chicken is always worth a couple of meals, so I thought I’d grab one of those. There was a short-ish line for the deli, so I used the whizz-bang new touchscreen system to place an order for a small BBQ chicken. It printed out a little voucher, which promised me a coffee on the day of printing only, and which I could also use to collect my goods.

There was a counter that I assumed was where you go to wait for the express-style ordering, so I went over there. A couple of minutes passed before someone asked me if I was waiting for something. I pleasantly said yes, I had ordered a BBQ chicken, and dutifully gave her the number on my voucher.

The next (fat, but that’s immaterial) girl took one look at me, and just said “we don’t have any.”

I said “Super. Does your feeder know you have gone out.” No, I really said “Well, that’s pretty silly. Your automated system should have told me there weren’t any left.”

She haughtily replied, “Yeah well, the system doesn’t work properly.”

This raises lots of questions in my mind. The system in question stands to really improve a shopping experience - it means you have to deal less with people (and let’s face it, people are dumb). It also should make things quicker, and less hassle free. Instead, I walk away vowing not only to not use the system again, but to abuse it. (Can anyone say, I just printed out 30 BBQ chicken orders, and used the vouchers to get 30 coffees I threw away out of spite?)

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