Etiquette

I may not be Emily Post and I may not be a Real Housewife of NYC, but I do know a few things about office etiquette.

1.  If you call a meeting for 3:30, do not start the meeting at 3:20 so that when I walk in at 3:28 I've already missed the beginning of the meeting.

2.  If you walk by my office and see that I'm hard at work, with headphones in my ears, and you check the schedule conveniently posted on my door, seeing that I'm not currently holding office hours, please do not barge in, sit down, and start asking questions - the answer to which can all be found on your syllabus.

3.  If you are a former student and you email me for guidance.  If I don't back to you immediately there's no need to call me and ask the same questions.  If the answer to your questions were easy I'd have answered you immediately.  Chances are you asked unanswerable questions or you asked questions that are so broad there's no way for me to answer them succinctly.

4.  Do not mistake my silence for misunderstanding.  Chances are I'm trying to hold back a string of unpleasant language I want to spew at you.

5.  While I may work all the time, I'm not in a constant state of office hours.  I have a windowless cave of an office....therefore I leave my door open so I can avoid claustrophobia.  That is not an invitation for you to come in and start a stream of thought conversation about last week's class.  If you want to talk, make an appointment.  Otherwise, move along.