I have a slight anger control problem. You see, I keep punching people in the face. They ask me a question, and then I bury my fist in their nose. Bone and cartilage collapse under my tightly-clenched fingers, and the center of their face is instantly transformed into a satisfyingly bloody crater.

At least that keeps happening in my mind.

This is the conceptual image which forms in my brain in the zillionth of a second after someone asks me, “so, how’s your summer vacation?” Because I’m a lousy poker player, it is probably obvious in this question’s wake that I’m seriously annoyed before my good manners kick back in and I am mentally prepared to be nice again.

Look, I know the questioner is usually just trying to be polite. And I am positive they don’t mean to be asking the most unintentionally insulting question imaginable. That’s why the punching-in-the-face thing only happens for a split-second in my head rather than reality.

But it is an unintentionally insulting question, and not just for me. I think most educators bristle at the suggestion that we get three work-free months off every summer. It varies by the person, but for the most part we don’t get a “summer vacation.” We’re still busy. It is just a different flavor of busy.

Here’s my partial summer to-do list:
• End-of-the-semester registrary stuff (finalize grades; sending notices for academic warning, probation, and suspension; finalizing the Dean’s List; etc.).
• Co-ordinate and publish the new edition of the Higher Education in Idaho book for IACRAO.
• Update and publish the 2014 BBC Catalog.
• In addition to the usual data maintenance in ASLAN (programming degree templates, updating records, writing reports, etc), co-ordinate the upgrade of the entire system to a new platform college-wide.
• Update all student degree audits, with special attention to next year’s graduates (so they find out about problems in time to fix them).
• Organize and oversee the pre-registration of all incoming freshmen.
• Organize fall registration (set the schedule, program the online scheduler, get publicity out) and new student orientation.

And that’s just the registrary stuff, most of which are multi-stage projects happening out of public view. (If I do my job right, everything runs smoothly and nothing draws attention to itself. If that side of my job isn’t invisible, I’ve screwed something up and a lot of people will be inconvenienced as a result. I work really hard to avoid that.) That doesn’t even take into account the teaching side which is more public but actually only a small part of what I do. Any updates or improvements to a class have to be done during the summer or they don’t get done. With a major change to the structure of my church history classes starting this fall, that also means some extra work.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I am not complaining about being busy, and the worry that this might be misperceived in that way almost kept me from writing this. First, I like what I do, and I believe in its value. Not everyone is so fortunate to do what they love and love what they do. Second, I’m hardly the only one. The “summer staff” at BBC (admissions, financial aid, development, business office, maintenance, and others) will spend this summer getting ready in their respective departments to serve students in the coming school year. All that stuff that is ready to go at registration is the result of a lot of work by a lot of people. Even the full-time faculty, who do get two months “off” (unpaid, by the way), will have plenty to do to get ready for next year.

So, in a way, I want to speak not just for me but also for them, and for people in education beyond BBC. I am not not NOT saying my job is harder than anybody else’s, not would I. But the idea that you get summers off just because you work at a school is incandescently uninfomed. I just ask that you look at my abbreviated summer task list above and then ask yourself how the words “how’s your summer vacation?” must sound in my ears. Put those two incongruent ideas together, and you’ll understand why I keep punching people in the face…but only in my mind.

(Stay cool, and have a great summer!)