As if anyone needed more proof of student ineptitude

I apologize for not posting in a while. But then again, no one reads this anyways so it doesn't really matter. Also, this post may not make a hell of a lot of sense if you don't go to GW, but I'll do my best. I just finished up working every day of housing selection for 2006-2007. The way the system works is that everyone is assigned a lottery number based on the number of years you've been in college. Some people get really good numbers and thus have all the good options to pick from, some people get shitty numbers and have shitty options to pick from. It's the only fair way to do it because we have so little housing. Some people have to live in the shitty places, and the only equitable way to put people there is the lottery.

A lot of people don't realize why we mandate that all freshmen and sophomores live on-campus. It's because of a D.C. law - this is widely publicized. However, I still had to tell countless current freshmen that it was impossible to move off-campus. Not only that but parents. Oh lord, the parents...

This is the main element of my rant. When students have their parents call, it is an absolute nightmare. What students don't realize is that getting their parents involved is bad for everyone. For one, they don't understand the system - they have no idea how housing selection works, and thus get angry when their own conceptions of how things should be are rebuffed with what the system is. Secondly, they can't fully articulate their student's desires. I've seen, personally, that people will come in after their parents have called and be like, oh, that doesn't sound so bad, I'll just do such-and-such. But their parent just finished bitching me out earlier for proposing the exact same thing.

Thirdly, you're in COLLEGE. If you're a rising fourth-year student, your parents should not have to do ANYTHING for you anymore, other than pay your tuition. Nine times out of ten, a student will get a better response from a face-to-face interaction with a staff member than a phone conversation with a parent. Parents also assume we have the resources to spend, in one case, more than 2 hours on the phone with them. We do not. And, goddammit, my supervisor is going to say the same thing to you that I just said, and she can afford to be bitchy, whereas I cannot. Students are so goddamn lazy it is beyond description. Our number is everywhere. Call us and work it out yourself. These messed up New Yorker mothers who call us have the entire day on their hands to tell us about how their daughter can't live in a room without a kitchen because she shouldn't have to and all rooms for sophomores should have kitchens. I swear to God, I avoid 212 numbers like the plague. These New Yorker mothers are so far removed from reality it is scary. Have you ever been to another school? We have some of the nicest dorms in the country, you can put a fucking cork in it, you strumpet. I don't care if you did marry your way into some sleazy family with your blimp-sized sense of entitlement. If your kid is 18+, they need to start running their own life. Kid: grow the fuck up and deal with your problems like an adult, not like a grade schooler who has their parent complain about hot lunch.

I've even had parents call back three and four times, trying to talk to different staff members so that they can get one of them to give them a wrong answer, then hold us to it. Students try this trick too. One guy called four times to find out what his chances of being placed on Mount Vernon are. If you say the word "chances" in a CLLC conversation, your chances of getting a straight answer are about as good as the chances are that you will hear English spoken outside the library. We don't fucking know odds, we're not housing bookies, alright? Although it would make for an intersting office pool next year...

Speaking of tricks students will try to play on the "idiot" CLLC staff members, I've heard some great ones. Firstly, I had one kid tell me that it was impossible for them to live on the Mount Vernon campus because of allergies, and that it was equally impossible for them to live in a dorm with communal bathrooms (mind you, with individual stalls - no gym showers) because of "medical reasons." What does that even mean? Do your poops stink really bad, so bad that you're embarassed to use communal bathrooms? Are you a fatty, and ashamed to waddle around the halls with a tablecloth as a bath towel? Truly, some students need accomodation through Disability Support Services. But they knew that they did... two months ago... and got squared away well in advance. You would not believe, dear reader, the excuses people will come up with to preclude them from living on the Vern or in Mitchell.

More tricks... hmm. Well, one girl called to impersonate her roommate - who she was trying to boot out of her room without her knowledge. Ha! "Okay, miss, can I have your student ID number?" ... [click]. Seriously. What do you take me for. "It said that I could pick [good dorm], but when it all went through I ended up in [crap dorm]. I demand that you put me in [good dorm!]" Well, according to our records, that dorm was closed an hour before you selected... thank you for playing! Better luck next time.

Oh oh oh, and another good one was when people call up and say "Yes, I'm an Honors student and I made some calculations. According to the rooms available, you don't have enough rooms to house all the sophomores. What is GW going to do to remedy that?" We need to house sophomores on campus by law. There is x number of sophomores. We must have x number of beds for them. QED, you abacus monkey. Jesus poo-hurling Christmas, you think that a department that employs well over 30 people can't work out simple math problems? You can put your Ti-89 away, Sir I-scored-1600-on-the-SAT-but-can't-cook-a-Hot-Pocket... we've got it under control.

And in the end, we do have it under control. We have competent staff members for the most part, and when incompetence does crop up, we have enough good people to cover their mistakes and make things right again. There are worse things that can happen to you than living in Mitchell or even the Vern. Someone came up to me the other day with an absolutely horrendous housing number. They said to me, I know I'm going to get screwed, but my brother shipped out to Iraq today, and you know what, I don't even care about housing. I realize that there are more important things than this whole process. I'm going to try to best to get what I want, but it's not the end of the world. And it isn't. We want you to be happy - really, it's less work for us. If you're happy, then you won't have to ask to be switched around later, and you won't have to submit all that paperwork, and we will be happy. Everyone wins when the student gets what they want. But that doesn't mean you are entitled to what you want, and I think everyone who doesn't realize that needs a swift kick in the head.