And then there's the fact that she's MAJORING IN ENGLISH. It's like adding gasoline to my rage bomb.

That, too. And, aside from the major ethical issues...you can't hold your kid's hand forever. I mean, Annabel is 33 years younger than me. If life is kind to us, she will outlive me by many years. She will be healthy and in her prime while I'm aging and slowing down. So she'll need to learn to take care of herself. If she turns out to be less of a writer than I am, I'll be doing her no favors at all by writing her papers for her (though, before college, if she has trouble and needs guidance on grammar or how to structure a paper or whatever I'll do all I can to help her, short of actually doing the work for her). She'll need to learn to get by in the world on her own abilities. You know, be a grown-up, when she grows up.

Sophia, has coworker explained just WTF she was thinking?

I swear, I need to go have a word.

Speaking of education. Monday will be my son's first day of public school.

Either or both would do. What the hell kind of parent thinks this is a good thing to do for your kid?

The English Majors I've known would tear someone like that to shreads without as much as a second thought.

I'm afraid I'm just cynically amused at the "mom wrote my papers" student. My response is "Well, looks like you're stuck now, doesn't it. Paper's due in a week, sweetie, good luck on that."

I rarely find rage profitable unless there's an immediate target who would benefit from freshly minted righteous indignation.

The closest Mom ever came to helping me with papers was when she'd type out what I was dictating and then help me re arrange the paragraphs so it made sense. But that was when I was in middle school.

My aunt's done something similiar, writing isn't either of her kids's strength, so she's typed while they talked, but since they were both in college she didn't help with the actual construction of the paper, she just typed so they could think easier.

In college, a high school friend of mine was in the Education department, and I was majoring in English. Somehow we ended up in the same class one semester, and she came to me for help when she kept getting bad grades on her papers.

I told her that writing a paper for an English class was completely different than for an Education class (hers was filled with "I" statements, no thesis, and no analysis or textual evidence to back up an argument) and I marked up her paper with so much red pen that her eyes bugged out when I handed it back. She didn't take my advice, which was not bright of her, but we all make mistakes.

I mean, at least she wrote her own paper.

Bless my boss, he just told me that if I want to call in sick for my entire last week he'll stand by me.

Of course I won't because, stupid ethics. Just because the uni consistently gave me incomplete information that worked to my disadvantage doesn't mean I should dick over the people I work with and for. But I do anticipate a couple of sudden 12-noon doctor appointments that'll take all afternoon. What are they going to do, fire me?

Any chance you can move your departure date back a bit just before you come down with a horrible horrible cold?

I won't tell.

Speaking of education. Monday will be my son's first day of public school.

That's awesome! How's he handling it?

From what I have seen with all the jobs my husband has been through, he will get paid for any vacation time in his last check, but sick leave is gone. Fat lot of good it does to be healthy.

Make sure he gets all of it; California has very specific rules about vacation time. From my company's policies page:

When Employees Leave the Corporation

All employees who leave the corporation will be paid for any unused vacation for the year in which they leave.

When California Employees Leave the Corporation

All employees who leave the corporation will be paid for any unused vacation for the year in which they leave. In addition, California law requires that employees be paid pro rata on a daily basis (1/260th for each workday, based on 260 workdays per year) for the vacation to which they would have been entitled on the following January 1st. This is accrued vacation. Thus, an employee leaving the corporation on June 30th would have accrued 130/260ths of the vacation for which he or she would have been eligible on the following January 1st. Of course, there would be no pro rata vacation payment due if the accrual of additional vacation had ceased because the employee had carried over more than twice the previous year's allotment of vacation.

It wouldn't surprise me if CA also had something for sick time, but since we don't get "official" sick time (sigh), it's not on our policies page.