The class I teach, MUS-T132 Musical Skills 1, requires textbooks from three sources. Virtually every semester one of them has been a problem, but this semester, unbelievably, all three have failed. I really, really wish I were in charge of getting my own textbooks for this reason, but I only have any control at all over the last one. Anyway, the gory details:

1. The students need to buy sight-singing and rhythm books from the bookstore. However, when I went to the bookstore the other day, neither of these books were on the shelf, and neither was even listed on the little tag for T132! I sent an email to the head of the aural skills curriculum and the head of the department. It turns out that the former was supposed to order these books, but since this was the first time he would have had to do so, he wasn't aware. Okay, I can excuse him, but anyway, my students won't get these textbooks until probably late this week (maybe even later).

2. My assistant instructors (AIs) need the same two textbooks; the company has sent the department desk copies, which they loan out to the AIs. This semester, however, when I checked, the department had none of one of the books and two of the other, and I have seven AIs. Part of the problem is that people don't always remember or get around to returning loaned out texts from previous semesters, but also last semester there was only one big course using these texts and we ran short then; this semester, there are two big courses using these texts. So if we ran short then, it's no wonder we're short now. I don't think the department has gotten around to ordering more--I think they're hoping a few more will come out of the cracks, as it were, if they send more emails.

3. Finally, I create a course packet that is published by a local company. I submitted the materials about one day before they say you have to have them in, which admittedly is not giving them a lot of leeway. (But I've turned things in later in past semesters and had no problems.) I'd heard nothing about getting desk copies by Thursday, and didn't see any for the students in the bookstore, so Friday morning I called the guy at the publisher's that I correspond with and left a message. He called back a few hours later to say he was out of his office but he'd call back later. When he didn't, I called him and left the message that I had a staff meeting scheduled the next day (today) at 2 and I'd like to be able to hand out course packets (something!) to my AIs. He called about 1:45 today and left a message, since I was already in my meeting. I checked it after the meeting: apparently the course packets haven't even been made yet, and he said he'd get them to me by Monday morning. Yes, the first day of class. My AIs all teach on Monday, and I won't see them all until Tuesday. So I guess they have to wait to see the syllabus, the exercises, the requirements, etc.

This mass failure has me really baffled.