time, man

So yesterday, my 5pm virtual conference is a no-show. No-shows for student conferences are sadly common, but this particular student has been punctual as a clock all semester; something's weird. For this last round of conferences, with scheduling very tight, I'd just put all non-emergency meetings with my consulting clients on hold for the week, shared my booking link with my students (it doesn't charge you to book; by the time clients get that link, they've already paid), and told the young'uns to feel free to grab any open slot that worked for them.

my sketchy side-eyeing the tech face (probably)

This has worked out so well that I'll probably do it again, but there's one caveat: The confirmation emails are automatically generated from Google's calendar system, and sometimes they go to spam. I figured maybe this had happened to my mysterious no-show, so about 8 minutes into what should have been our appointment I sent him an email saying so and giving him the video chat link directly.

Crickets. I shrugged and went back to grading.

This morning I got an email from the same student –– not really huffy, more like vaguely aggrieved that I would think he blew off a meeting. He attached a screenshot of his confirmation email (which did arrive, so yay!) as evidence that he had actually signed up for 3pm, not 5.

Except ... the confirmation email read "3-3:30pm (PDT)."

No blame to the student; it could have happened to anybody, all too easily.

But that's kind of my point. Or, as my friend Jim likes to say:

"I love computers! They get me behind so much faster!"

Well ... yeah.