Working for SLCC

My short stint working for SLCC is officially over. While I didn't work there long (a little less than 3 months), I learned a lot from it. The biggest thing was that, as a community college, SLCC accepts anyone -- no matter what. That meant I got to work with some pretty "interesting" people. I would come home most every night armed with a few stories to tell Dave. I soon found I could categorize every person I talked to into one of the following groups:

Normal Students

Yes, there are some normal people who attend SLCC and who actually have some idea of what is going on. Luckily, I got to talk to this type of person occasionally, which made up for some of the others.

Dumb Students

Maybe it is because I attended college myself, or because I have worked at two separate colleges in the last few years, so maybe my standards are too high. But I really cannot understand how a person can expect to succeed in college if they cannot even figure out how to get to the college's website.

Student: "What's an address bar?"
Me: "There is a box at the top of the window where you can type. There you will type in www.slcc.edu."
Student: "Whoa, slow down. S-L-C-C dot what?"

People Who are Not Students

Our building housed a lot of conferences and meetings of non-school-related groups. This meant we got to answer a lot of random questions from a lot of random people, such as "Can I borrow your pen?" "Do you have an ATM?" "Can I borrow your computer?" These people tended to think that just because we sat behind an official looking desk, that we should be able to answer any question and would be annoyed when our attempts to help them were futile.

Helicopter Moms

Ironically enough, these types of moms tend to think the rules do not apply to them... after all, they gave birth to this person 18+ years ago. They ought to be entitled to accessing all the student's information, right? They ought to be able to do everything for their child short of going to class, thus ensuring their child's success in college, right? And if someone tries to stop them, they have every right to get angry at people who are only working to protect their child's privacy, right?

Mom: "Can't I just call my son and have him tell you it's okay to give the information to me?"
Me: "Unfortunately, there is no way to confirm his identity over the phone. So, no."
Mom: "This is completely ridiculous! You mean he has to come in here and do this himself?"

The Children of Helicopter Moms

These students fall into one of two sub-categories:

A. Incapable of speaking for themselves and happy to let their irate mother do the talking.
B. Embarrassed that they brought their irate mother to the Student Services desk.

I tend to favor those who are included in category B. They at least made me laugh occasionally while they yelled at their mom for yelling at me for something that is their own fault.

Thirsty People

In the building where I worked, one of the most common questions I answered (and one I answered at least once a day) was "where is the drinking fountain?" Generally people were embarrassed to learn that they just had to walk an additional 2 feet to their left and they would see it.

"Over there. The drinking water dispenser is clearly marked."