Why must my year start off by wanting to lash out at incompetent FAMU employees?
I still don’t have my net check from fall 2006. What good is a new director of financial aid if she never returns student e-mails? How do classes mysteriously disappear from transcripts?
These are a few of the many questions I have, which have led to my conclusion that many FAMU employees are unfit to hold positions at this great University.
I’ve had enough of the foolishness at this University. My run-in with an employee who deemed her personal call more important than my path to graduation was the last straw for me.
As I walked into the CLAST Office, 204 GEC-A, there were four students in line. I had just seen a car get booted, and I was in a rush to get back to my car to avoid a potential altercation with parking services.
I was praying the secretary in the office wasn’t holding up traffic by taking her personal phone calls instead of helping students, which she had done to me the day before. I signed in and had a seat.
So it began. The very thing happened I hoped wouldn’t occur. The secretary was taking a personal call, while students trying to handle University business waited. She was in a long conversation about how good the chicken is at Publix with someone who clearly wasn’t going to sign papers and clear CLAST holds.
What does fried or rotisserie chicken have to do with the CLAST test? Who gave her the right to put extra crispy chicken over my graduation? She had the nerve to get an attitude when I asked her to get off the phone. Is she serious?
I stared at the 2006 homecoming calendar and began wondering if this University is worth constantly feeling defeated by a dysfunctional system that is not getting better anytime soon. I wondered if I would have had a better experience at FSU, since earlier that morning I was amazed how efficient my dealings with the employees there were while taking my CLAST test.
FAMU employees need to learn the value of the students: no students, no FAMU, no paycheck. I really would appreciate if employees would execute good customer service at all times, not just when it’s time for an evaluation.
I don’t want to feel like FAMU would be better off as FSU South. I hate feeling dislike for this University because the principles on which it was founded have held strong for decades.
I want to feel proud when I tell new Rattlers that their journey at FAMU will be like no other, and I do not want to feel that I have lead them on because FAMU has serious issues. I hope that one day my children will too walk this journey. I’m holding on to my vision of a better FAMU. We all have to help make changes for the sake of FAMU’s legacy.
Dee Jones is a senior graphic design student from College Park, Ga. She can be reached at founder@visualography.biz.