bureaucratic ferris wheel

From: Admin Assistant, Student Affairs

Date: Nov 25, 2013

To: Student

Subject: Meeting Notice 

Hello Student,

The Office of Student Affairs has received a report from the Athletics Department regarding the unauthorized distribution and use of your student card. Specifically, you lent your student card to a friend so that they could access the facility. Accordingly, Athletics confiscated your card.

In accordance with the Student Rights and Responsibilities Policy, you have allegedly violated: 

Category 1, Section 7, Failure to Comply (with the terms and conditions of Cold University Identification)

This is to advise you that you are required to meet with the Director of Student Affairs. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the conduct alleged and to determine whether such conduct merits the imposition of a sanction.

Your meeting is scheduled for December 5, 2013 at 10:00 am in 430 Who Knows Building.  Please confirm your attendance via email to me no later than December 2nd. Note that failure to respond to this request and attend this mandatory meeting will result in a fine for non-compliance that will be applied to your student account. In addition, the Director will render a decision regarding this incident based on available evidence. This decision will be communicated to you via email.

Also, you may wish to speak with the University Ombudsman in advance of this meeting. The Ombudsman role is to advise and support students throughout the Student Rights and Responsibilities process.

Thank you.

Administrative Assistant, Student Affairs

From: Student

Sent: November 25, 2013

To: Admin Assistant, Student Affairs

Subject: RE: Meeting Notice

Hi, 

Your email came as a surprise to me and quite an unpleasant one at that. I feel that not only my time had been wasted reading this but every person involved in this bureaucratic chain up to the point of me receiving this absurd message. 

The amount of actual crime or 'violations' as you'd call it that occur on the daily by either the student body or staff of the University that go unreported or bypass investigation is insulting. This pathetic type of work ethic is increased by the actions leading up to and after the send button was clicked from your email. 

I will attend your meeting and play your pithy game as to not give you anymore of the money you so hungrily take from everyone who attends, parks, and is involved in the University community. 

As a side note, if school violence was ever a concern to you, I'd rearrange the way you deal with your issues. I could see that a person with less patience, confidence, or mental stability than I do, who would have to deal with such a trivial matter on top of everything else in their life would be inclined to take their anger out on the people responsible for their meltdown. 

I will simply shake and hang my head in embarrassment for you and everyone in this chain. 

My email here is to acknowledge that I have read your concerns and have given a second to 30 of thought towards your pathetic threats of fining me. 

I don't have time to be interviewed by your summer interns about this and the resource you'd otherwise spend to pay these people can be placed elsewhere, possibly towards fixing the automatic doors that ostensibly assist people with disabilities who also help pay your salary with no benefit. 

Student

From: Director of Student Affairs

Sent: November 25, 2013

To: Student

Subject: Meeting - Notice

Hi,

I’ll be working with you directly to set up a meeting for us to chat.  The Administrative Assistant has shared your emails with me.  I’m looking forward to the opportunity to discuss the concerns you have with the university and this situation in particular.  While lending out your card to another student (allegedly) is not the end of the world, the university does have a process and it needs to be followed.  You do have an option.  Rather than meeting with me, you can simply go to Info University and have a new card printed.  If you choose this route, I’ll assign the obligatory fine of $25 along with an email asking you not duplicate the behaviour.  However, I do think we could both benefit from discussing the issue that brought you to my attention as well as the concerns you’ve shared with my assistant in writing subsequently.

I’ll leave it to you to determine how you would like to proceed.

Kind regards,

Director of Student Affairs

From: Student

Sent: November 27, 2013

To: Director of Student Affairs

Subject: Meeting

With deepest, sadness I'm writing to inform you that I will not be able to ride the bureaucratic ferris wheel with you. I will be away until the 10th, in which case you can reschedule a meeting if this issue is still relevant. 

Student