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| "Dear Proffie, I'm almost there. Don't start test without me!" |
This essentially means DSO has authorized me to CHANGE the time of the final exam for him because he lives an hour and a half away and doesn't want to drive in early to take our 10 a.m. final exam, never mind that the class has been meeting at 9 a.m. all quarter.
I called the DSO office to verify that this was not a prank. And no, this is not a prank. He has managed to convince someone over there that his choice to live an hour and a half drive away is now a disability and that I have to accommodate this need by allowing him to start his final at 11 a.m., rather than with the rest of his class at 10 a.m., even though he didn't need this accommodated all quarter long.
Am I peeved? Yes. Outraged? Even more so. Surprised? Not so much.
Cynic, I am stunned.
ReplyDelete[mouth hanging open in disbelief; speechless]
ReplyDeleteI - I'm speechless. Holy crap.
ReplyDeleteWe don't allow anonymous user names. You're welcome, but could you use a pseudonymous moniker from now on?
DeleteThank you,
The RGM
moderator
Ah, eek. Sorry, my profile wasn't updated.
DeleteThat student is clearly living so far away from reality that I'm amazed they can commute to class at all.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, but I'm still wondering on what planet the disability office is located. If their mission is to advocate for students with, you know, actual disabilities, sometimes in the face of faculty skepticism, they sure aren't helping themselves any with this decision.
DeleteDefinitely not helping! We have had other questionable calls on the part of the DSO, so this just makes me angry.
DeleteBring it to the chair-dean-provost. See if this bullshit really floats all the way to the top. If it does, you at least learned one more thing about where you work, if someone stops this inanity, there still is hope.
ReplyDeleteGet the DSO people to talk with your HR people. No more morning classes for you!
ReplyDeleteThis strikes me as a case of the wrong office being given responsibility. This isn't a disability or a temporary situation requiring accomodation (such as pregnancy or major surgery, both of which my students are exhibiting in veritable droves this term), but a life-style issue that Student Affairs (or your local equivalent) should be dealing with.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I have a couple of students who I know live that far away. Heck, in certain urban concentrations, you don't even have to live all that far away to be looking down the barrel of a 90-minute commute.
All our classes are going to be 10-2, or online, if this keeps up.
Maybe it's the week I've had (none of which I can post about without outing myself), or the way this trivializes *legitimate* accommodations, or maybe it's the fact that I lived 150km from my school in the last year of my undergrad and never DREAMED of pulling a stunt like this, or maybe it's the fear of Armageddon brought on the super-mutant-stupid offspring of snowflakes and adminflakes, but this one is really getting to me.
ReplyDeleteForfucksake, did this dickwad ever even think of crashing on someone's couch the night before exam?!
(Actually, never mind. If he's enough of an entitled, narcissistic fucknuts to think this is even remotely OK, I wouldn't let him sleep on my couch either.)
Does anyone actually know what happens to these types after graduation? Do they get their shit together and find professional level work, and do well at it, or - if they find work - do they try to pull these stunts and get fired for performance issues?
ReplyDeleteCan this be a "thirsty" of some sort? I really, truly want to know what happens to people who think like this guy does.
Graduation?!
DeleteThey don't graduate. They drop out/flunk out/flame out, and go back to smoking weed and living in their parent's basement, incapable of even getting a job stocking shelves in a supermarket because they flunk the psychological testing component of the interview process.
Then, after a while, they come off academic probation/become eligible for student loans again, re-enroll, and the cycle begins anew. Lather, rinse, repeat.
my wife has an employee like this.His career is not going well, to put it mildly.
DeleteMy BFF is a manager of a sizeable group of flakes, and no, they don't get any better. One of them once filed an HR complaint against her for "being unfriendly" because my friend didn't go to the pub with her subordinates after work. She actually had to go to mediation with HR, at which point the HR person said to the flake "you know that being your buddy is not part of your boss' job description, right?"
DeletePlan A: Allow the fuckwad to start the exam at 11. Just be sure to pick it up with the other exams.
ReplyDeletePlan B: If you're altering your schedule to accommodate the fuckwad, be sure to put in for additional pay, as it's not part of your contracted assignment.
Plan C: Anonymously let this fuckwad's "disability" slip to a local ADA-specialist attorney. Maybe a fraud case can come out of this.
Plan D: Contract Strelnikov's goons to take care of the fuckwad.
Actually, make that Plan A.
If I accommodate him and he starts the exam an hour later, I actually have to stay an hour later to accommodate this "need." I don't think we can put in for additional pay. I've never heard of that on our campus, but I'm going to check.
DeleteThey should also pay a visit to whoever approved this "distance disability" idea.
DeleteMy guess is that you wouldn't be eligible for additional pay. If your school is anything like mine, you're an "exempt" employee, meaning you get paid to do your job whenever they want you to do it and take at LEAST 40 hours. If you're an adjunct, that might be another story depending on how your contract is written.
DeleteRegardless, this is fraud. Disabilities have to fall under the ADA, and your snowflake's aversion to morning drives isn't a covered condition. If that were the case, I know a lot of proffies who wouldn't ever have to come in for any reason before 2:00.
I think I can justify giving him a "different" exam if I can convince him to take it the day after the others do (if you read what I'm saying) while I'm grading other exams in our conference room.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely already contacted Administration. My dean is checking into it. Typically, this kind of request would have had to go through the dean's office. Apparently, he got this "disability" approved to also get textbooks converted to audiobooks (which we do for some students with other REAL disabilities) so he can listen to them during his long drive instead of having to read them.
Does anyone know, since it's a disability, which is protected by medical privacy laws, what recourse I have in making this known publicly if the dean blows it off?
You can't identify the student by name but you can certainly ask or talk to people about there being "one or more" students with this disability.
DeleteMy oh my CC, that is some beyond the pale bullshittery. Just the fact that they are calling a 90 minute commute a "disability" is insulting to pretty much everyone.
ReplyDeleteNot that it matters, but did it explicitly say the student drives to campus? If he relies on public transportation he could have argued that he can't make the 10 AM test because the bus doesn't arrive at his front door at exactly 8:30 AM (or it does, but he would prefer it arrive at 9:45 AM and then turn into a helicopter and fly to campus. Whatever. It's bullshit either way).
I'm wondering if DSS went along with this to save the time and energy of going through possible appeals?
ReplyDeleteWow, who knew I have had a distance disability for the past 12 years, slogging my 3-hour round trip because my partner, who actually does have a disability, can't move?
ReplyDeleteI don't mean my partner is paralyzed. I mean that medical care precludes a move. Sorry!
DeleteI wasn't aware of my own "distance disability," either. Does my daily commute (in which I somehow manage to triumph over this tragic adverse condition) allow me to park in a handicap spot once I finally arrive? I'm gobsmacked at this.
DeleteF&T, that's a pretty funny clarification. Thankfully, my wife hasn't pronounced me to be paralyzed while I sit on the couch during football season.
DeleteI'll echo ^^Vanfur: Take this up the chain of command, and make it clear that you think that this is an abuse of the ADA which constitutes fraud on the part of the student, and fraud on the part of the campus DSO. Whoever approved this needs a whack on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI work on a commuter campus too, and I swear to Strelnikov that if anyone EVER comes at me with something like this, I will take a flamethrower down to student services when I go to explain that NO, I will not be accommodating fuckwittery, as it is not covered under the ADA.
At least our disabilities center offers a proctoring service for alternate-time exams and such-- does yours not?
ReplyDeleteOurs does for certain exams that can be proctored by them. Since this course requires observation of a lab, it cannot be proctored by them. But I will be making him go there for the essay-portion of the exam.
DeleteIf this were put in a list of crazy college shit and I had to pick which one was fake, I would have picked this. I think someone must have just waved this through. I can't imagine someone actually considered this issue and made a conscious decision to deem it a disability.
ReplyDeleteMake sure everyone in the class knows about it. When you're passing out the exams and have one left over, say out loud, "Why do I have too many copies? Is someone absent? Oh, yeah, I forgot. One of the students is coming late because he has a commute. The administration considers that a disability, so he gets to take the exam later."