To think if you're on holiday, you're on holiday

[JanineStHubbins]

And shouldn't be hassled to work?

Today is the first day of my holiday - the first proper one I've had in three years. Last year I went abroad for a week, but ended up bringing work with me as I was behind on a writing deadline (I work in Higher ed).

I'm on the way to the airport, and just got an email from one of our administrators, telling me I have to set a resit exam paper for a student who didn't turn up for the original paper (and didn't submit coursework) by Friday.

AIBU to just ignore this email? My out of office is on. Advice welcome, especially from fellow academics!

OP, is it your fault that the paper hasn't been written before now? If so, I think you'd better get it written. If not, switch off your phone and enjoy the holiday.

In most institutions, students are entitled to a resit irrespective of whether it was a failed attempt or a no-show. But the resit paper is usually written weeks if not months in advance, often before it's even known whether a resit paper will be needed. If a student is entitled to a resit but no resit paper is available then the student will have very good grounds for appeal.

If the OP should reasonably have known that the resit paper needed to be written before they went on holiday then they should have made sure it was done, and not needed to be chased by an administrator. If there is no way the OP could have known the resit paper was needed, then someone else in the department not on holiday will just have to do it - or the department finds another way around it, e.g. let the student take the paper later in the summer.

Most senior jobs in non-academia mean working 24 hours a day too IME. Just sayin'.

Just wish mine was senior heartstrumpdiamonds! and/or better paid at least.

my rule when on holiday is 'they can email, I can ignore'. I never respond when on holiday. simple. if you don't make it happen, no-one will.

Ex-academic here. We were always instructed to submit two sets of questions - exam and resit exam - at the same time. I'd suggest you
a) turn of your phone, but
b) when you get back, suggest that in future all staff submit the exam and resit at the same time. Very shoddy of your uni not to be doing this already.

YANBU. I'm still peeved at my otherwise lovely boss, sending me a text with questions (I don't have a blackberry, thank goodness) two days post surgery, where I had a general anaesthetic. I should have just told them to feck off and "I told you so" (I'd been asking for a back up for months, and been ignored), but in my weakened state I responded.

People need time off, to have a break. This whole 24/7 work culture is very damaging. I'm pretty sure it doesn't make you more productive, it makes you less so.

violet, how do you get from what the OP says that she hasn't read the memos? She says there's been nothing about this in any memos/emails, which if anything strongly implies that she HAS read them, no?

I don't and it was naughty of me to imply that this might be so in her case. What I said though was that this was very much the case over and over again in my experience...that memos/emails etc had gone unread, or been forgotten. And the academics, bless them, would swear up and down that nobody had ever told them!

I think that whether or not you should do this would depend on whether you should have known that it needed to be done. Presumably you knew the date that the exam resits had to be and so surely you should have done the resit exam before you left?

Wow, lots of extrapolation/projection in some of these posts. I'm bemused to read that 'on my own account I seem to be the one at fault here', when as I've stated already, this is the first I've heard of it. It was not in any of the exam memos/emails (which I read closely for instruction, more than once, as I am new to the dept). No administrator mentioned this to me before today. I booked my holiday through the online leave system and it was approved by my line manager.

And the student will have been hauled up for his non-attendance, but that is done by those with pastoral responsibility, not the module convenors. In any case, we can't force students to attend class, much as we might like to.

I'm in HE and I thought they could reschedule resits - there's only one student so it's not like they have to keep to a fixed timeline. I'd say don't do it. (And in some departments your student wouldn't be eligible for a resit anyway because you have get 40% ie be a near fail, or have submitted mitigating circumstances, which in turn would be dealt with by the appropriate committee and you would have heard - so you could also check the eligibility or get the admin to confirm that he/she is eligible).

I'd have to say, being in academe myself: state that you are not able to set a fair resit exam in your current circumstances.
And as for those saying you should have thought of this, in my experience, people don't make up resit exams just in case a student who appears to have completely dropped out of the course doesn't turn up at the exam! In general we set them only when we know we need them. In some fields setting an exam is a ton of work, and it's very hard to get them tuned to the same level of difficulty as the main exam, so it's not something we undertake just in case.

Oh and another note about resits in advance -- I think that's totally reasonable if you are teaching philosophy, literature, etc, and quite unreasonable if it's physics, maths, statistics (especially above 1st year). The exams are really technical and you need to tweak the questions so that they have answers that a student can obtain in the time allotted - not too easy, but not too hard, not too messy with the algebra, no notation that might be misinterpreted, notation consistent with lectures, right combination of a dataset with the right statistical property and a question they haven't seen exactly but have seen similar to, etc etc. It's one thing if you ask one question about Kant or another question about Kant or one comparing Kant to Hegel; you know they both can be answered well or poorly based on the thoughtfulness of the student, the readings in the course and the lectures! So how feasible it is will depend on your field. Just say no.

I am an academic and at the uni where I work we have to set two papers - one for the main exam and one resit/deferred. My subject is technical and I certainly wouldn't try to set a paper without access to my resources. If you did set a paper and included some error due to not having everything you need, the error and complications arising from this will be what are remembered, rather than the fact that you gave up part of your holiday to set the work. I would recommend that you email back saying that you can't set the paper since you don't have the materials that you need - then just enjoy yourself!

you need to have a holiday, without distractions of work otherwise you will become ill and taking extended periods off for stress is not going to help.

people will cope. no-one is indispensible in work.

Wow, lots of extrapolation/projection in some of these posts. I'm bemused to read that 'on my own account I seem to be the one at fault here', when as I've stated already, this is the first I've heard of it. It was not in any of the exam memos/emails (which I read closely for instruction, more than once, as I am new to the dept). No administrator mentioned this to me before today. I booked my holiday through the online leave system and it was approved by my line manager.

Well I feel your pain, and I apologise profusely for being one of those extrapolating, clearly unfairly in your case. But as I have said, I have been on the other end of this way too many times not to sniff the possibility that there might have been two sides to this. On the plus side, life has been much better since I rejoined the real world.

Again, apologies. Switch your phone off, have a wonderful holiday and ignore!

'what the heck do they think they're playing at giving a brand new, never-run-before, un-roadtested module to a brand new, junior member of staff?'

That happens all the time though, because it's often the reason for the new hiring - you know you need a module in something and existing staff don't have the expertise.
I can well imagine they neglected to explain everything to the new member, though, eg maybe other staff do write a resit paper at the same time as a main one and nobody ever bothered to tell her.

In complete sympathy with you, OP I've been required, by incompetent administrators who have NO IDEA of how to teach etc etc, to do stuff to cover up their mistakes. Most administrative staff have the luxury of sticking rigidly to their 35 hour week, and feel free to take holidays in the middle of teaching terms etc etc etc.

I find it interesting that the university admins on this thread are so contemptuous of academics. Do they forget that it is the academic staff who do the real core work of the university? And who do far and away more work than anyone else in the organisation.

Enjoy your honeymoon, JanineStHubbins The admin person will find someone else if they have any common sense when they see your Out of Office message. If they have basic common sense, they'll ask your HoD.

If they had actually done their job, they'd have noticed on the day of the exam that there was a no-show, and asked you then for an exam paper for an August re-sit. Not when you handed in the marked scripts. And not three weeks after that! It's the admin person who's been incompetent, not you.

Not academic here but I am the wife of a man who had our holidays disrupted for years because he was too polite to say I'm on holiday, Sod Off! to colleagues..
One big, huge barney in the middle of Bridlington later and he put his foot down about work based pestering

upthechimney has taken something personally!

Do you work at the same institution as OP as you seem to know categorically who was at fault and what systems are in place.

Funnily enough if I ever took holidays in term times it was because nothing was required of me at that point - unlike the summer time when I'd be dealing with student loan queries, grant applications, queries from students when academic staff had trundled off merrily for three months.

I think you needed to clarify that administrators on the thread are contemptuous of academics who don't do essential parts of their jobs before going on leave and then saying "well I'm on holiday" when asked to sort out a problem they have caused Not all academics do this obviously, but a number do. It's all very well being the best lecturer in the world but if your course doesn't run because it has insufficient numbers and whatever you'd be sure to criticise the marketing staff, the enrolment staff etc wouldn't you?

But back to OP. If it was something OP should or could have reasonably anticipated then I think she needs to sort it whether she is on leave or not. If it is someone else's mess then turn phone off and relax. I'd need to be really certain it wasn't my mistake though before doing that!

I just can't picture ever being handed a bunch of papers without some kind of conversation along the lines of

"all ok?"
"yes, pretty much, had a couple of no-shows"
"oh ok - are they resitting or..."

You know the kind of thing?

Thanks Rubadub for saying all that I was going to say in response to Upthechimney

And the irony of his/her very evident contempt for the admin staff is not lost on me. (No one works harder, my left buttock!! Sticking rigidly to a 35 hour week, yeah right.) Precisely this sort of attitude that had me thinking 'but where have all the egos gone' once I worked elsewhere.

But I have to agree with you, that most of them were really lovely...just a few of them sat on their high horses, pulling rank etc etc.

Btw I have worked on both sides of the divide.

Yes, Rubadub, you said exactly what I was thinking only much more articulately.

I work in academia and have in living memory NEVER worked only my contracted hours.

Getting time off in term time is like asking for special papal dispensation. I've stopped bothering to try.

If I had a pound for every time an academic asked me a question the answer to which they had been told/emailed a million times over, I wouldn't have to work with them any more.

Maybe admin in the OP's case HAVE mucked up. But the amount of venom levelled at admin in general by Up is really not in proportion.

Onlylovers

YES!

Should just clarify, I am equally contemptuous of anyone who doesn't complete essential parts of their job before going on leave

One place I worked (not education) had a clear desk/hand over policy and it could result in a disciplinary if someone else wasn't able to pick up your work in your absence (however long, whatever the reason) - the old line about being run over by a bus was trotted out. it was the best place I ever worked in

We have a run over by a bus policy here too!!! Isn't it the best!!

If there was no way you could have predicted this situation then obviously you should not do it while you are on holiday. The fact that you are even asking the question suggests that you don't feel entirely blameless though.