Looks like some of my college class schedules.(wry grin) Hope it's fun!
Although I have to say, (rant mode enabled--skip rest of post if rant bores you (grin))
I've always been very irked by the "normals" and "mundanes" thing. Maybe because my day jobs have--except for the seven-year exile in CT--been in fields that were NOT publishing- or SF-related. I got very tired of going to cons and hearing people like my co-workers sneered at as "mundanes" just because they didn't read SF. I pointed out icily to one woman that =I= was a "mundane" too, after all; I read SF, but I worked outside publishing/SF. "Oh, no, YOU'RE not one of THEM."
I told her attitudes like that were in my experience a large part of why people in the outside-SF world sneered at SF. Plus that IMHO =nobody= had the right to cop attitude like that because it was insulting both when used against people in the SF field AND against people outside the field. And also in my experience, people who felt insulted by comments and sneers like that managed to get =even= for it.
And I had a LOT of experience when I said that: I was a financial aid officer at the time. We took similar flak from students/parents who considered us Stupid for being Just Bureaucrats and not Creative Artistes. I got lines like "Are you people THAT stupid? How long does it take you to scratch your heads and write down a few numbers?"--this when talking about certifying a loan app the parent hadn't bothered to submit until the day of registration.
I would get angry, but I never yielded to the temptation to get even with parents/students for that kind of garbage. Wouldn't have been ethical for me to do so. But, I saw colleagues at other schools who got angry and =did= get even--and the students/parents never realized they were paying the price for their attitude problem. I'm not saying I approve or it's ethical or I'd do it...but I understand why they did it.
So I always find myself more on the side of the "mundanes" and "normals" than on the side of the SF people who like to use those terms. Mileage varies.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-12-06 02:02 pm (UTC)Although I have to say, (rant mode enabled--skip rest of post if rant bores you (grin))
I've always been very irked by the "normals" and "mundanes" thing. Maybe because my day jobs have--except for the seven-year exile in CT--been in fields that were NOT publishing- or SF-related. I got very tired of going to cons and hearing people like my co-workers sneered at as "mundanes" just because they didn't read SF. I pointed out icily to one woman that =I= was a "mundane" too, after all; I read SF, but I worked outside publishing/SF. "Oh, no, YOU'RE not one of THEM."
I told her attitudes like that were in my experience a large part of why people in the outside-SF world sneered at SF. Plus that IMHO =nobody= had the right to cop attitude like that because it was insulting both when used against people in the SF field AND against people outside the field. And also in my experience, people who felt insulted by comments and sneers like that managed to get =even= for it.
And I had a LOT of experience when I said that: I was a financial aid officer at the time. We took similar flak from students/parents who considered us Stupid for being Just Bureaucrats and not Creative Artistes. I got lines like "Are you people THAT stupid? How long does it take you to scratch your heads and write down a few numbers?"--this when talking about certifying a loan app the parent hadn't bothered to submit until the day of registration.
I would get angry, but I never yielded to the temptation to get even with parents/students for that kind of garbage. Wouldn't have been ethical for me to do so. But, I saw colleagues at other schools who got angry and =did= get even--and the students/parents never realized they were paying the price for their attitude problem. I'm not saying I approve or it's ethical or I'd do it...but I understand why they did it.
So I always find myself more on the side of the "mundanes" and "normals" than on the side of the SF people who like to use those terms. Mileage varies.
(rant mode disabled)