What they do, not what they say...

I tend to disregard the title phrase. I believe what people say. But this week, in at least two separate incidents, I think I've decided I need to pay more attention to what people are doing. And to focus less on what they say. People lie. And I think they lie a lot. The main reason for this is that I've gotten burned one too many times. So here are the example from this week. The first is entirely jaw dropping. I'm still totally in awe that this actually happened and the other party involved basically denied it to my face. I know what I saw and what I saw was cheating pure and simple.

So here's the first story. I was collecting papers from my students this week. We were in a non traditional classroom (eg no desks). The students were milling around and handing me thing, asking questions, talking to each other. I looked around and noted that one student had two papers in front of him. He was very clearly looking at one papers and copying answers onto another. Cheating pure and simple. When confronted, I believe I said something like, "Am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing?", the student replied, "Um, I'm just checking my answers with my buddy's." I think I said something to the effect of, "Well, checking answers doesn't involve writing anything down and aside from that fact, how do you know your buddy has the right answers?" I told him to come to me in the future to check answers. Last night, I pondered this incident with a friend who is a woman on the faculty at my U. I wondered if this might have been a result of my gender. My thought is that the student didn't think I would call him out or something along those lines. I know I'm probably going to get a bad evaluation score from this particular student now. But I really don't care. He was clearly breaking the rule and didn't even admit it when called out. The worst kind of cheater in my mind. He did absolutely horrible on the assignment. But I haven't figured out what if any penalty I am going to enforce.

The other incident, is just related to me and my one on one interactions. It doesn't have to do with work at all. So, what I was going to reveal at the end of my last post was that I had had a nice date with a guy I was excited about seeing again. I didn't want to jinx things, so I didn't tell you all about it. Well due to circumstances I knew about, I couldn't see him last weekend. We had planned to meet for an adventure this weekend, something that would overall take about a day, though which day wasn't decided until late in the week. Meaning that I had kept my entire weekend clear to make sure that whatever he decided I could go along with. Well, no more! He canceled late in the day on Thursday! I understand that work gets in the way sometimes and that sometimes the unexpected happens. Believe me, I understand this. But I had worked hard all week to make sure that I had a day free over the weekend and I kept my schedule clear. I'm kicking myself now. And I'm really on the fence in my decision as to if I'm going to give him another chance. I'm disappointed and I'm angry at myself for falling into my usual pattern of waiting for a guy. I think what I've decided is that unless he is really willing to go out of his way to set something else up, to really step up, I'm not going to see him again. (BTW, he canceled in a voicemail and I have returned two phone calls since then, both of his calls included apologies and the later asked for a rain check. But, the ball is currently in his court. And I was pretty disappointed when he said in the last voicemail that he wasn't going into work until 1 pm on Saturday, so I could call him at home until then. What I don't understand is why he didn't ask me to come meet him for breakfast on Saturday or something else that wasn't a whole day adventure but could be done with the small amount of personal time he had over the weekend. I think this means that something has changed and he's really not interested.)

This later incident just seems to be another in the long string of such incidents. I was actually fascinated at a comment made when I met up for dinner with one of my former roommates from grad school a few years ago now. He and I were aware of each others dating lives or lack of them during grad school. I told him a story during dinner about my current status. His response was something along the line of how he thought I really had never gotten the respect that I deserve. I was surprised that he said that, but really I guess it's true. I was excited about this new guy because he said that he wanted to see me again and that he enjoyed out date. He even called me a few days later (that almost never happens to me). But currently, this seems like just one more to add to the list.