Yesterday was spent transferring photo's from my C drive over to an on-line storage medium and some of them back onto a jump drive (I need to transfer the rest of them in a bit). It was tedious but necessary since I am running out of space on that drive... darn old laptop.
I woke up this morning thinking about something.
I went into my sons middle school office last Wed. about 10 min. until 3 p.m. Most of the doors were locked except one, so I went inside to the office.
There I found a lady, well dressed, busy at something. I had these forms that I needed to turn in, exemptions for school fees, they were all ready except there were two that needed to be copied.
This lady's manner was of self importance, every word and action meant to put me in my place. She explained that they were not paid overtime and could not take the forms from me.
I could see their copy machine, right there, easily accessed. It would have taken about 1 min. to copy the papers. Yet she refused and what could I do, I was being civil.
The frustrating thing was that I had been waiting for weeks to get the car in order to go out to do my errands. I finally had a chance to get to the school to hand in the papers, and wasn't able to. Since I wasn't able to, my sons band teacher has been giving him 0's everyday for not having paid the instrument rental, and he has been pestering me about it.
At the time, I didn't think too much beyond the frustration of not being able to hand in the papers. But I was thinking this morning, how proud someone has to be in order to refuse such a simple request. I realise she seemed to be busy trying to finish something, but I am sure that at any other school (and in fact the elementary school that he came from) the lady in the office would have helped me.
Sure she felt justified, the other lady in the office had left and she had thought that the doors were not open, and of course, she wasn't paid overtime. Yet it nettles me, the attitude that she displayed, the power play.
In another context, were I a customer, this attitude would be terrible.
In any case, there has been nothing that I could do. I sent my son with the forms today and hopefully they will take them without too much trouble. I need to talk to his band teacher anyway to see if he will excuse the 0's.
So those are my frustrations for the day, easier to get them out here than to confront self important people (who could make things even more difficult) in their element.
SG
I woke up this morning thinking about something.
I went into my sons middle school office last Wed. about 10 min. until 3 p.m. Most of the doors were locked except one, so I went inside to the office.
There I found a lady, well dressed, busy at something. I had these forms that I needed to turn in, exemptions for school fees, they were all ready except there were two that needed to be copied.
This lady's manner was of self importance, every word and action meant to put me in my place. She explained that they were not paid overtime and could not take the forms from me.
I could see their copy machine, right there, easily accessed. It would have taken about 1 min. to copy the papers. Yet she refused and what could I do, I was being civil.
The frustrating thing was that I had been waiting for weeks to get the car in order to go out to do my errands. I finally had a chance to get to the school to hand in the papers, and wasn't able to. Since I wasn't able to, my sons band teacher has been giving him 0's everyday for not having paid the instrument rental, and he has been pestering me about it.
At the time, I didn't think too much beyond the frustration of not being able to hand in the papers. But I was thinking this morning, how proud someone has to be in order to refuse such a simple request. I realise she seemed to be busy trying to finish something, but I am sure that at any other school (and in fact the elementary school that he came from) the lady in the office would have helped me.
Sure she felt justified, the other lady in the office had left and she had thought that the doors were not open, and of course, she wasn't paid overtime. Yet it nettles me, the attitude that she displayed, the power play.
In another context, were I a customer, this attitude would be terrible.
In any case, there has been nothing that I could do. I sent my son with the forms today and hopefully they will take them without too much trouble. I need to talk to his band teacher anyway to see if he will excuse the 0's.
So those are my frustrations for the day, easier to get them out here than to confront self important people (who could make things even more difficult) in their element.
SG
4 comments:
You have every right to be frustrated. But my mom always taught me if I feel like I've been mistreated, treat that person better than they have treated you. It's hard advice to take, but it usually works.
But I'll bet you are a happier person than she is. Or maybe the school had some kind of stupid copy machine policy that she felt obligated to defend with her life. Living inside the box. Like that airport a few weeks ago that wouldn't let anybody off the plane that was stuck overnight on the runway. Policies and Procedures 1 / Humanity 0.
Good advice Layla, thanks for dropping by.
B&B it was definantly a case of policy over humanity. I'm reminded of the zero tolerance policy and the many kids that have been unjustly thrown out of school for plastic water guns or other such things.
I walked away, dignity intact, yet am still perterbed that there can be such narrow mindedness.
There are far too many bureaucrats in life.
Post a Comment