Tales From The Travels

I wrote previously about crazymakers and mentioned how we have this crazymaker in my department. I was looking for a way to deal with this guy and have, so far, been successful this semester. I feel very much at peace with myself and I felt dealing with this guy would be a test of my composure. In retrospect, I was right about it being a test and I feel I’ve passed, so far.

This guy loves to disrupt meetings and undermine everything that is being done. He thrives on chaos. This is a real problem because we have 14 sections with seven professors and we all must teach the same thing. We have course coordinators for the fall and spring semesters and they both do a very credible job getting standard class activities out. We also have common exams that we write as a group. Both of these are fertile ground for our crazymaker. He’ll object to every minor wording issue and question everything anyone says. He’s famous for going behind people’s backs and getting things rewritten. This is not only very insulting, as if saying he’s the only one that’s capable of writing, but then we also have to listen to him complain about how he doesn’t have time to do everything. My thought is that he would have more time if he wasn’t always redoing everyone else’s work.

We have equation sheets with the exams and they needed to be redone for this year. We switched textbooks and the equations had to reflect the format in the new textbook. I volunteered for this job last spring after classes were over and researched all the changes. I knew the crazymaker would object, no matter what, so I carefully kept detailed notes on every equation and change. Sure enough, when I sent it to the rest of the section for review he came up with all sorts of objections. I calmly pulled out my notes and was able to go to the exact page in the textbook to document every equation.

The funny thing is that I like the guy and get along well with him. He’s not a bad person, just a crazymaker, and I had to find a way to deal with it.

We started something new this fall that I’m pretty excited about and wanted to see happen. We got a bunch of money that we could spend pretty much anyway we wanted on the program and had several meetings about what to do. What we decided on was to purchase a system of clickers for the classroom. This would allow us to project quizzes and questions on a screen and have everyone answer the questions, allowing us to ask sample problems during class. We would then be able to immediately see how everyone is doing and monitor how effective the lecture is going. It is a really neat system, but I knew there would be problems with the people in the section.

The course coordinator for the fall is this young woman who is doing a nice job coordinating the course. But, she always resists anything new. It isn’t that she doesn’t like something new, it’s that she’s afraid of it and is more concerned with the problems that it might bring than the opportunities. I knew she would dig her heels in for the clickers and I was right. I was also prepared. We wanted to use the clickers to do daily reading quizzes to help motivate the students to read the material before class (what a novel idea!). Her complaint was that this semester was too soon the get everything ready and she didn’t want to do it this year. So, I immediately stepped forward and volunteered to do all the work, and I got it all done in time. I even held training for everyone to show them how to run everything. The quizzes were implemented this semester and have been going well.

Then, the crazymaker got involved and insisted all of the quizzes were bad and wanted to rewrite them all. I was also expecting this and was prepared. I just said it was fine with me and gave him all of the material. Then, I told him when he was done to send the changes to the section chief for approval. I didn’t feel any ownership on these things and I was not going to get into it with him. If he wanted to change things, that was fine with me. I was prepared to step aside and let him go at it.

But, this pulled the rug out from under him. I understood the issue with him wasn’t the quizzes, they were written by the publisher and I just selected questions from a long list. The real issue was making things crazy, to stir things up. When I failed to get riled up and when I refused to battle him, I took away all of his motivation. The result? He decided everything was fine and dropped the whole thing.

I have found this to be a very effective strategy. The changes are not what he wants to achieve. He just wants the attention and the chaos. By denying him those things, I am removing his motivation. There is no game to play, so he quits and things are much more peaceful in the workplace.

And, I find I am able to avoid the stress and tension that goes with it. This has been a big test for the self-peace I feel I have achieved, and I am happy with the results. Now, if future tests will only go this well.