Governing values for a dean (well, for me)

So, there's this mindset I'm discovering in my new job.   Administrators hear a lot of complaints, and in particular, they hear a lot of complaints about the stuff that they themselves are doing or about their own personalities or whatever.   And the way that people deal with the criticism can sometimes be a kind of bunker mentality, to play defense, and to presume that no matter what they do, it's just never going to make people happy.  

This mentality is not me.  But I've been realizing that if I'm going to be working shoulder-to-shoulder with people in bunker mode, or even if I'm working on my own and have to talk with irate faculty/students/parents, I'm going to need a strategy that keeps me sane (optimistic, even) while still being able to work with people who are upset.  

I've decided to use a page from the book of Annie Grace, who runs the 30-day Alcohol Experiment:  to go with "curiosity".   I think (hope?) that I can respond mentally to a rant with a kind of "this emotion/information is not what I expected.  I wonder if there is information I am missing?  Can I figure out the source of the fear/anger?  What about this situation is really the key point to address?"   I've found that going for curiosity keeps me from taking a conversation personally, and it helps me to focus on the topic at hand rather than about my own feelings or my own righteousness.   Ironically, when I'm not trying to make myself feel better or justify my actions, I often end the conversation with both of us feeling better about a path forward.

All that is a lead-in to describing a set of "Governing Values" I've written for myself as a new Associate Dean.  I have a personal set of such Governing Values; I keep this list in my planner and try to re-read them about once a week.  I've been doing that for years.  The dean list is new to me, and we'll see how well it stands up to the experiment of my first year in this position.   At any rate, here goes:

Governing Values for Deputy Deaning

I am curious. This role is a fantastic opportunity for me to learn about myself, the college, and the many people here.

I am actively optimistic.   I bring positive energy that helps all others do their best.  I encourage the people I interact with, and cheer for their accomplishments. 

I am respectful.   I assume, as a default, that people are sincere and that they are capable.  I respond in a timely way to concerns.  I do not gossip or bad-mouth people.

I am consultative, and I use my position to be the voice of those who are not as easily heard.  

These statements are not perfect reflections of the truth --- in particular, when I re-read the sentence "I do not gossip or bad-mouth people" I feel all guilty because actually, I do gossip and bad-mouth people.   But I think they're good aspirations to have, and I hope that by keeping this list close by I can live more and more up to it.  

Will this work?  I dunno.  I guess we'll all have to be curious about how well these values steer me through the year to come.

mailbox construction

A while back, my daughter told me that she missed having a mailbox with a flag -- the kind of flag you raise to let the mail carrier you have outgoing mail in the box, and that the mail carrier lowers to let you know that they've passed by and maybe you have new mail.  Semaphore communication, with time lag.  

I myself was missing having a mail box.  Our new house came equipped with a tiny little mail slot, very low in the front door, which I can only imagine is a total pain for the mail carrier:  open the screen door, squoosh and fold the magazines so they can fit through the tiny slot, bend over low, lift the flap with one hand and push the mail through with the other . . . ugh.

So, I set about making  a pair of mailboxes, one for my kiddo and one for me.  Fortunately, I happened to have exactly the right material.  That is, I had some old wooden doors, the kind that come in various thicknesses because they had thick frames and skinny panels.  I'd disassembled these doors to use the long parts for some other lumber project, and I still had the short parts.  Clearly, clearly, these short parts want to become mailboxes in their next life.  

Et voila!  Here is an unpainted version.  Note the cool pointy-beveled front edge that used to be where the door went from thick to thin.  The flag is made from . . . I think a rod from some old blinds we no longer own and a spare piece of fabric.

I didn't have hinges lying around, so I improvised.  The bottom part of the box has two eye bolts, and the lid has two long screws that stick out through the eye bolts --- kind of like the bolts on the neck of Frankenstein's monster.   This system works well!

My daughter is going to have her front porch repaired and then painted her favorite color, and when that happens I'll use some of the paint to match the mailbox to the porch.  But since I've given her star-wars-themed presents for many of her birthdays, I stuck a Yoda sticker on the unpainted version when I gave it to her.  

Lovely!!!  (???)

Here's the second mailbox, now in service on my own porch.  Our mail carrier seems very happy to use this.  Yay!  And it's nice for us, too, that we no longer have to step on our mail as we walk into the house. 

 

Making a Mud Kitchen

In our latest installment of "Stuff Made Out of Other Stuff", the Miser Maker Conglomerate is pleased to present . . . the Mud Kitchen.

The main materials that went into the Mud Kitchen consist of

• a paint-spattered, plastic dishpan left in a dusty corner of the basement, by the previous owner of my daughter's home;
• four trash-picked garden(?) posts, rescued during a morning run from the fate of landfill burial a few years back, and
• a black wooden desk, put out at the curb by some of my neighbors, and disassembled by me and Prewash with help from my handy cordless drill.   (Actually, Prewash didn't really help very much in the disassembly, but she was very happy to keep me company).  

Oh, and apparently I also used a pair of 2x4's I'd gotten from somewhere.  Why the heck did I have those lying around?  No idea anymore.  

The two aspects that are the most fun of any project like this, as far as I'm concerned, are (1) making everything up as I go along, and (2) power tools.  

The making-everything-up part is an interesting puzzle.  Once I've got everything together, it's kind of obvious how it should work, but when I start, I've just got a pile of odd-sized pieces of wood and a vague idea of what the final product might look like.   I ended up using 12 different scraps of wood, most of which I had to trim down in some way.  

But the power tools, that is just playing -- so much fun.  I got to use my circular saw a bunch for the above-described trimming.   The jigsaw, for making a hole for the dishpan to sit in.  My heat gun, for removing the black paint (also works for frying bedbugs!)  A brand new orbital sander, used here for the first time.   (Where have you been all my life, orbital sander?   I own an inherited belt sander, gifted me by my dad, but as much as I love my dad I'm now a convert to the new tool).  And of course, extensive use of my cordless drill and its many fabulous attachments.  

It took me a month or so to figure out which pieces of scrap wood to use and how to bring them together, but I did successfully solve those puzzles and came up with a configuration I liked.  Last weekend I trundled down into the basement, disassembled the Mud Kitchen, loaded the pieces into the car, drove over to my granddaughter's home, and had her help me reassemble them for use in her back yard.   

Then I got to have fabulous meals:  mud soup, mulch waffles, chocolate cake . . . 

We've got another little maker in the making!