A likable but very annoying and time consuming student sent an email to myself and three different people without copying the others with the subject line "i had no idea about some deadline and I need help asap." No apologies, no excuses given, just that she had "no idea" a deadline existed. This is despite the fact that it is listed in four different pieces of communication sent to her campus box, individual communication, not just a random flyer stuffed in her mail box, plus an email sent to both her campus email and her gmail account. Since I was out of town, the three other people took the time to respond to her, not knowing that others were also responding to her but each copied me. And since that time (last Tuesday), has she turned in the paperwork that was due? No, she just keeps ignoring their advice and asking questions are explicitly answered in the paperwork she was given more than three weeks ago. The paperwork she was to turn in simply had to be read and then signed to indicate she had read and understood what was required of her and to indicate a yes or no as to whether she wanted to accept a place on the program that was offered to her. All of these people told her to turn in the forms now and that I would help her when I got back.
As soon as I returned to email access, I responded that technically she was no longer eligible for the offer that had been made to her but since I was away, if she gets the forms in to me by 10:00 am on Monday fine, otherwise, the offer is revoked. I did this because she has a history of trouble with follow through on many things, including two earlier deadlines she missed. I mentioned that she appeared to have an issue with deadlines. I planned to speak to her about the fact that although she is a very smart person, she seems to be constantly shooting herself in the foot and to give her advice about the reality of deadlines in the real world.
Her response
I am really mad at myself for having missed the deadline. However, I do not recall any other deadlines that I missed. What were these? Please remind me. I can't imagine I haven't handed in enough paperwork on time. It has been extremely time consuming for me to do all the application work and to miss the deadline even though I shouldn't have for non-legal paperwork does not seem a justification to revoke my participation on this program.
On Monday, I will happily document the deadlines she has missed previously from the 82 emails I have from her in the past. I will point out that our deadline has nothing to do with "legal paperwork" that there is a waiting list for her place on the program for an equally qualified student who is only on the waiting list because there are limited spaces, not because the other student is not worthy of her spot. She was only given preference because she will be a senior, that we sometimes have to make decisions based on such arbitrary things, as much as we would like to not have to do so. She will be told that if she makes one wrong step with the remaining deadlines that must be met, her position will most definitely be revoked for non legal but justifiable reasons. I almost hope she misses the deadline on Monday.
Interestingly, despite my dislike of speaking with seatmates on airplanes, I had a very interesting discussion with my seatmate yesterday on the flight home from the east coast that is tangentially connected to the issue of deadlines. He is a physicist who works as a civilian contractor in a field that has military applications some where in New Mexico. (I wanted to ask him if he knew Polly_Mer but realized that I would sound like an idiot.) When the '
generous' free beverage cart came around we started talking because he was interested in the journal I was reading. Anyway, our discussion led to some of his woes of finding people to do the work he needed to get done so I asked him what knowledge and/or qualities he would like to see undergraduates emerge from college with. His reply was that knowledge was important and he could find plenty of those who had the requisite knowledge he needed but he would like to see people who didn't stop when faced with an obstacle but rather tried to strategize other ways of doing things, to problem solve. He wanted people who worked well with deadlines and were able to break down the steps to complete a project on time. He also wanted people who could work together as a team.
After our drinks were finished, we both went back to our previous endeavors and stopped talking. He brought out his computer, and I noticed the top of his computer screen had the word "UNCLASSIFIED" so since I couldn't spy on anything interesting I took a nap. When I awoke as the plane landed, he made a point of adding that he had thought of another skill he really wanted students to have when they graduated. He said, "I want them to be able to listen." I mentioned that we do give students some tips on being active listeners in College Survival Skills type workshops etc. But he said, "Colleges give credit for courses in speech and public speaking but it is even more important for students to be able to listen. Unless you give credit for learning how to listen, students aren't going to assign any value to it. It is critical for them to be able to learn this skill." This is not earthshaking or new and off the subject of this thread but I thought it was interesting to remember.
Hmm, spell check doesn't recognize "strategize" but it is in my copy of "the most useful and authoritative dictionary you can own." Sorry to ramble, perhaps this should be on the free association thread instead.
