Deezil.us

Y’know what really grinds my gears?

The first speech in COM161 follows in the extended entry. It works out rather nicely as prose and an actual spoken piece.

Have you ever been so irritated with someone that you just wanted to take out your frustration on their neck? Just wrap your hands around their throat and squeeze so they can’t ask you any more pointless questions? Think of those voices bouncing in your head, and now you know what I feel like. I am forever haunted by the lingering stupidity of other people, and it makes my blood boil. People that refuse to learn can be some of the most difficult in society to deal with, and that is my greatest pet peeve. I am a TA for several classes of CSC 199, as well as one of the computer techs for the College of Business, so I have to try and teach a lot of different people daily. It bothers me so much because I feel like they aren’t listening, it makes me question my effectiveness as instructor to them, and it wastes my time, a precious commodity in my world.
Hey. Hey you. Pay attention to me. I’m trying to talk here.
You are listening, if not for the fact that I just made you pay attention. Those people that frustrate me, they usually aren’t. It seems like I have to do that to a lot of the people that I help. I have to keep checking up with them, making sure they are following my actions, keeping up with me through every step. Now, I don’t mind going through this process step by step, holding their hand, guiding them through it, but when they nod their head as I am going through the steps like they get it, and then turn around at the end and give me that look, it’s like someone unleashed a bee hive on me, it just stings all over.
Those stings really start to hurt. Just like it hurts my feelings.
I’m not very secure about my job as a teacher. I know I can teach, but I’m one of those people that needs validation. And when the people that I am helping teach do something stupid like blowing up in my face about something I did or did not do, it just cuts into the core of me. There was one time where I actually broke down and cried because the student I was working with was being so difficult that I couldn’t work with her any longer. At times in the past, I had wanted to come back and teach this level of students, college-age, mature individuals. After that one person, I really started to doubt whether I wanted to even attempt it anymore.
All that wouldn’t have hurt so much, had it not been just a waste to help.
The most blood-boiling part of me having to deal with those that are ignorant to the fact that I am trying to help is that I just wasted my time on these people, while so many others who need help and would be receptive, had to be ignored. My time is in short supply. Between classes and work, I am in the academic sector of campus for over 40 hours a week. Add on top of that my duties to academia outside of class, fraternity functions, being a leader to freshmen in Hart College, and several other odd and end time consumers, and you start seeing that my days pass by quickly. Really quickly. I need to maximize the time I spend, and I can’t afford to waste any of it on people that don’t need it.
All this talk about time reminds me that my time here at the podium is drawing to a close. I just hope that whenever someone takes the time to help teach you, that you don’t treat them as I have been treated in the past. Listen to them, tell them they were good teachers, and don’t waste their time. If you can do all that, then you won’t have someone mentally or physically ringing your neck because you just took up their time.