I don’t want to turn my blog into a gripe about work thing, but c’mon!

So we had our regular Tuesday staff meeting yesterday morning and one of the topics was counselor availability for our students. I work 8 to 6pm. The other counselors work 8 to 5pm. I get every other Friday off, I enjoy it. I get a one hour lunch and on Tuesday’s I travel downtown from 1 to 5pm to work on special projects for the system office. I’m not cocky about it, but I’m the ONLY counselor in the state that is asked to do this. I’m just saying….

Anyway, point of concern was that students in my case load were being told they had to come back to see me if they came in to speak with a counselor during my lunch, when I was out of the office or on one of my Friday’s off. Other counselors weren’t seeing them. Seeing as I see EVERY student that comes in between 5 and 6pm I felt that this was just a little bit of bullshit. So we discuss it and it’s unanimously agreed that if one of the counselors is out then we have two others that are more than capable of speaking to a student should they need to speak to someone. ALLRIGHT! I think, things will get better; no more pissed off students with complaints that they can never ever ever talk to me. Right?

Let’s fast forward passed my 4 hour meeting yesterday and passed my commute to and from the system office downtown:

“Ewok Poacher…Ewok Poacher!!!”, says one of the counselors. Well she didn’t call me Ewok Poacher…’cause she doesn’t call me by my gamer tag, but anyway. “There is a student who owes the school $5,000!”

“So”, I say

“He says he never got a bill…only a collection notice!” she says

“And…”, I say

“He said he did everything for financial aid his last semester here, that is causing his bill but I don’t so ANYTHING!”, She says

“Okay…so he owes the bill.”, I say

“No no no, I have all of is paperwork for this year here so we can verify his file and I have his loan application for this term so we can certify it and pay off his bill…I told him that we could do this today so he can register for Spring!! Oh, but he’s only in 5 credits (you have to be in 6 for a Stafford loan) so I told him to just get into a one credit class so we can do this loan….here he is can you talk to him? Oh, you will need to get the cashiers office to lift his hold so he can register for this one credit class” She says.

Teeth grinding, now. So basically the work I was to do when I got back from my 4 hour meeting has to wait…which means students that were in line to have their financial aid processed, appeals reviewed etc. wait because this counselor foolishly commits me to doing last minute work for a student in the name of what I call ‘fantasy customer service’. So I speak with the student and discuss options, request that his financial hold be lifted with the cashiers office so he can register and proceed with looking over his paper work. It’s approaching 5pm now and our last student worker comes in and says she leaving…she didn’t take her lunch and another counselor said it was okay for her to go home, leaving me the only one in the office. This other counselor left early too. Blood pressure rising.

“Oh, where do you want to copier?” She’s back and is asking me about copier location now.

“I really do not care where the copier is put.” I say

“Well what if we put it right here in front of your door..ha ha?” She says. At this point I’m trying to force laser beams out of my eyes…with no success

“I do not give a fuck where the goddamn copier is placed, can I please get to work so I can go home at six?” I say.

I don’t think she’ll be talking to me for a while.