OK you have got to be fucking kidding me. So the Prez sends out an email wherein s/he uses the horrifying phrase “improve customer service.” It’s not even subtle anymore. I can‘t even pretend it isn’t real. There is not enough bourbon in Bubba’s booze bin to erase it from my brain. It‘s real. It is the new dogma. AHHHHH! What is WORSE is that when I pointed this out to a colleague s/he states “Oh that’s fine for student affairs, registration and the like, I have no problem with that, as long as they don‘t expect it in my classroom.” WTF??? Jumpin’ Jebus on a pogo stick. REALLY??? Do you REALLY think that the snowflakes will magically change their behavior/attitudes from “customers” whilst in building X to “responsible adult learners” in building Y? Did someone from administration come by with some funky Kool-Aid while I was in class? And when Snowy McSnowflake doesn’t like the zero I just gave her in building Y, you can bet she will march her little ass over to building X where she will be a customer, and the customer is always right. And more importantly, the customer must always be HAPPY. Yeah, a customer service philosophy on one half of the campus will work great. Idiot. It is like trying to half flush the toilet. With about the same results. I don’t know what makes me more pissed off, the fact that we have officially moved into customer service mode or that I work with proffies who can’t see the problem with that.
-Academic Charlotte Anne
My sentiments exactly. And the results of trying to flush half the toilet (containing what's left of the Kool-Aid enemas) will be construed as YOUR fault.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing she isn't noticing: what many administrators who talk of "customer service" would really like to do, if they could only figure out how, is to get rid of the pesky, expensive, middlemen (the teachers), and just sell the product (credentials) to the customers (the students). But they need to maintain the illusion that there's some substance involved, lest the product become (or be revealed as) worthless. And, like the first-line employees in any business (salespeople, counter staff, waiters, etc.), the teachers are going to absorb the worst of the abuse from both the "customers" and top management as each tries to extract as much as possible from the other at the lowest possible cost.
ReplyDeleteCC, that's exactly right. And I'd guess that one reason the teachers insist on being so pesky about standards and learning and stuff is that the teachers are committed to the profession, while the administrators are committed to their careers and are already planning their next job move.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteA-freakin-MEN, ACA!
ReplyDeleteAs someone in Building X (but who's done time in Building Y as a limited term lecturer), I completely agree that this whole "customer" mentality is a bane & a turd in the puchbowl of academe. (Dammit, the only thing in that punchbowl should be quality hooch from Bubba's stash!)
Our admins hold this very philosophy. Since the faculty refuse to call those people enrolled in our courses customers, they pay lip service to us and tell us our relationship is proffie to student. Everywhere else on campus, however, including the administrators' offices, those people are to be considered customers. So let me get this straight: if I treat a student like a student, but he or she doesn't like my decision, the person goes to my chairperson, who is, at least for now, still considered faculty. Thus the student still gets treated like a student. But if the person doesn't like that decision and appeals it, the next stop is Consumer Central?
ReplyDelete