I hope so. I’ve observed that some (emphasis on some, not all) faculty struggle with pragmatic actions & grunt work. Staff have to be good at these things to do our jobs, but like I said, we are burnt out! We need you all to step up with the boring & tedious stuff to make organizing work!

It’s frustrating because we have models and even in TX, we have unions! But they have to prioritize this work and actually participate. That might mean giving a little less time to the next book project or conference talk.

One challenge I’ve observed as a staff member is that it’s hard to engage faculty in collective efforts, in part because their work is often solo and competitive. Even in WGS (a more community-minded discipline), it’s hard to get faculty attention and time. And staff are so burnt out.

Holy hyphen use, Batman!

We are overly reliant on in my unit. Some of it is culture, especially post pandemic. I would prefer to talk to people more often. But there’s not much I can do to change the culture at such a large place.

It’s hard to schedule in person or Zoom calls with coworkers. Even then I have to tell them, it’s urgent and needs to be offline. Then it still takes multiple days to schedule. This world is shitty & I don’t have the energy to constantly censor myself. Also I’m not JE.

Can I be honest about this advice? I think it IS generally good (esp for gov employees) but our workplaces, by design and somewhat just by culture, force us to use email for most of our communication.

When I met you at the book signing tent and thanked you for coming to Texas, I really meant that. It’s so frustrating that the dominate narrative about my home is, well, this. Anti-v*xxers are everywhere, even NY. While Austin seems to have a lot of conspiritualists, it’s not everyone who lives here

People are surprised to learn this about me. I’ll give the rest of this album a listen, then return to my Italian American queen Lady Gaga.

Yes, I am a sometimes fan on this certain pop star’s music, not so much of her as public figure. But she writes bops, and I have—and always will, unapologetically—love girly pop music.

I know I’m tempting fate here by the mere suggestion that there could be some fault in her songwriting. And it’s not that I even think the literary references are bad. They’re just not particularly nuanced and sometimes seem to misunderstand the original texts. Like high school students.