Beatdown August 18, 2004 ~ 9:59 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedTo people who think they can use the fact that they know me to get special favors.
Case in point: I’m an Assistant Registrar. Since I went to this school, I know a lot of the students in the Theatre Department. I do my damnedest to make sure that people who apply to graduate are going to graduate, including sending them updated letters on what they still need. This wasn’t done prior to me starting this job, and now I’m starting to see why.
Yesterday, someone that was in the Dramaturgy program a year behind me calls to bitch us out. She’s just gotten a letter that says she will have to pay a fee if she doesn’t get her thesis done before the end of the summer. (It’s school policy that you have to pay the fee if you are completing the degree in a semester in which you aren’t taking classes. It’s normally a nasty surprise, because no one reads the Bulletin, so I sent out letters informing people this was coming up.) In addition to a verbal bitchfest, she sends me an email, saying this was sneaky and underhanded, since she had already completed her thesis and now her degree was going to be held up.
I responded by saying that we sent out the letter the day before her thesis was approved and thus had no knowledge that it was approved. I told her that she would be graduating on time, that we had sent these letters out to a number of people to keep them informed.
She replies “And you couldn’t send another letter when you received word of my thesis, instead of putting me through hell? I realize that we are not best friends, but I do know you personally, and I would have expected some sort of notice.”
One, she had just gotten the first letter yesterday. A letter sent a day or two later, when we got the thesis results, wouldn’t have reached her until yesterday or today. Well after she called me and started bitching. Two, I don’t see how getting a letter could put you through hell, especially since we assured you that you are graduating on time when you called. Three, DON’T YOU DARE presume that just because I know you, you’re getting special treatment. I know half this campus one way or another, ain’t none of them getting favors. The last thing my old boss said to me before I left that job was “If anyone asks, you don’t do favors” and she was right. This student just really rubbed me the wrong way. So I sent her an email response I knew would rub her the wrong way. Only five words: “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
Beatdown with a Maintenance of Matriculation fee.
