Humans like meat wrapped treats, why wouldn't tigers?

I just showed Food, Inc. to my students so when I look at that guy all I can think of is weird microbial skin infections. yick!

I just knew that if I googled "meatman" I'd find a picture of a man wearing meat.

Internet, I love you.

Ugh, I'm just trying to dig out from under a big backlog of email and have been feeling so swamped for the past few weeks. Usually winter is a slow time of year for work with me, which poses it's own set of problems, but this year has been crazy busy. It's great for the business but it means I'm just feeling way behind on everything.

Things that are on the front burner right now; finish tax prep work to be ready to meet with the accountant on Monday, put together syllabus for class at SMC that starts tomorrow, put together Keynote presentation for same class tomorrow, follow up on discussions with new business unit at big client to solidify upcoming projects, follow up on audition with yet another business unit at big client which will hopefully lead to an additional long term contract, drive down to UCI to fill out HR paperwork for class that I start teaching there at the end of March, read over syllabus for same class and submit requests to college bookstore for script the students will be using, get digital scripts distributed for students in my class at CalArts for the next section of the class I'm teaching there, spend the next three evenings at UCLA advising students during tech rehearsals, schedule meeting with prospective board member for theater company where I'm VP of the board, schedule interview with potential director of development for theater company where I'm the managing artistic director...and I don't think I can type any more, but there's lots more.

It's good to have all the work and I'm very thankful about it, I'm just tired right now.

Wow ND, I need to take a nap just reading that.

I almost posted the exact same thing (as Burrell).

You guys! I forgot about the Good Stuff! Oops. Off to fill up the queue again.

Ugh, you guys, I have a situation at work I don't know what to do about. My new boss, M (new as of last summer), and my coworker, D, really don't get along, and I just want to Make Everything Right but I don't know how.

Basically, D feels that M doesn't value her program (she runs our Lower School library program, is in her third year in the position, has lots of prior teaching experience, and is working on her MLS *and* her Ed.D.). She feels that M looks down on her because she doesn't have her MLS yet, that M doesn't understand or value the work she does with the little kids, and doesn't really respect her or listen to her.

As far as I can tell, M feels that D is somewhat inflexible and unwilling to look at new ways of doing things (and I see her point), and this sometimes manifests as dismissiveness toward D, though I fully believe she does not intend it that way. We also have some issues in the library that M is trying to address, including staffing the circulation desk for 55 hours/week, and I think M can get so focused on her own things she's trying to solve that she doesn't always see that other people have different priorities.

So, what does all this have to do with me? Technically nothing, I suppose, except that we're a small staff (4 people) and they both complain (at length) to me, so I feel like I can see both sides of the issue when they can't.

Ugh. tl;dr There's tension and it's making me uncomfortable and I want to fix everything!

Holy crap, ND. That's a lot! Can you delegate any of it?

So, what does all this have to do with me? Technically nothing, I suppose, except that we're a small staff (4 people) and they both complain (at length) to me, so I feel like I can see both sides of the issue when they can't.

I see two possibilities.

The first is to start telling them both to leave you the eff out of it.

The second is to offer to them both to have a one-time sit-down with the three of you to address issues they have each raised so you can offer your perspective on them -- and THEN they can leave you the eff out of it.