I cannot do math. Really. The numbers are all just shapes to me that bear little relationship to the concepts that they represent. So, I might need a little help with this word problem:
A seminar meets once a month for 2 hours between 2 pm and 4 pm. The seminar has 15 participants. During the last meeting, each participant is scheduled to give a 10 minute presentation.
At that last meeting, the seminar begins at 2:15. The first four participants take 15 minutes. The next two take 10 minutes. The sixth takes twenty minutes, and the seventh takes 40.
A participant (who took only 10 minutes for her presentation) has a 45 minute commute to get to her 5 pm class on another campus. How rude is that participant if she leaves the seminar at 4:30 pm?
Note: There are no breaks at this meeting to complicate the math. The participant is also lucky enough to find a parking space just outside of the building for her 5 pm class.
Friday, April 24, 2009
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11 comments:
There is no rudeness, since the planner of said meeting also could not do math. Everything after "you can't do 150 minutes of presentations in 120 minutes of seminar" is only there to throw you off.
.... hmmm, I got 2+2=5.
It isn't rude to leave once the scheduled meeting time is over (after all, that's all you committed to attend), especially once it's 25% over time and expected to continue. While the nicest thing to do would be sit through all the other presentations, it's unrealistic to put all the "rudeness blame" on the participant who leaves -- a fair portion goes to participants who take far longer with their presentation than requested!
I also vote She Was Not Rude.
And I vote the person who took 40 minutes Off The Island for totally uncool presentation behavior.
Ah, good! My math is not as terrible as I thought.
Ink: oh, yea! The presenter had something like 20 pages of text for a 10 minute presentation. Which she read. And the moderator did not give her a "wrap it up" sign. I have learned from my students: I began packing up and looking repeatedly at the clock at the 15 minute mark. My reflex was to feel rude and embarassed, but then I thought "40 fucking minutes?" At least she didn't subject us to 20 Power Point slides of pure text (that was left to the first two presenters).
The person that took 40 minutes when they were given 10 minutes was the rude one. I can see running over by 5 or even 10 minutes (especially if they aren't experienced speakers or haven't rehearsed their presentation out loud) but 30 minutes over?? That is bang out of order. Also, Powerpoint is the work of the Devil.
Do these dudes teach like this, too? I'd get lynched if I tried to bring in 20 Power Point slides full of text.
Bavardess: I know! I cut the 15 minute people a little slack, but 40 minutes? Ack! As for PowerPoint, if used correctly, they can enhance a presentation; but most people use them as a teleprompter and zzzzzzzz. There should be a licence to use for it, like a 007 for presenters.
Babu: I wondered the same thing because the same thing would happen to me!
After crunching the numbers, and deriving the slope of the rudeness:presentation length ratio and solving for optimal parking time, I conclude that each minute of presentation in excess of 10 minutes is rude. After 5 additional presentation minutes a rudeness threshold is reached, whereby a related variable (frustration) begins to increase exponentially. After the 30 minute presentation mark, the function becomes chaotic, resulting in possible (and acceptable) behaviors such as fleeing the meeting in a mad dash for ones car.
Dr. No, thank you very much for your mathematical and scientific expertise! And "dashing" was exactly what I did, leaving a wake of former student who saw me, laughing their assess off. (I live to entertain.)
Clio, I can't believe the moderator didn't interrupt and say, "You have one minute left" or "We're out of time" or something like that! I mean, I can see letting 5 minutes go, maybe, if that seems to be the trend, but at the 25 minute or half hour mark? That's ludicrous. So your math skills are A+ indeed. (I might not have been able to restrain myself, had I been in the audience. So I applaud your politeness and professionalism.)
And Dr. No, you get an A+ for your equational abilities, too!
That would be "asses," not "assesses" --- which could lead to a whole word game comparing ass with assess with all of these "outcomes assessments" crap upon us.
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