First thing this morning a student walked in my office (proof positive that he knows how to find me!) and demanded an extension on a paper due today. Why? Because the college's e-mail server was down all day yesterday so he couldn't revise his paper.
Now I had e-mailed extensive comments on all these drafts last Friday so students could work on them over the weekend, but when I asked him why he hadn't looked at my comments before yesterday, he said, "Because I didn't know the e-mail would go down."
When I pointed out that, despite the lack of e-mail, we still had access to the internet, the library research databases, and that old-fashioned tried-and-true telephone, he said, "I didn't know how to reach you."
And when I pointed out that three of his classmates facing the same dilemma had actually walked to my office to ask me to print out copies of their drafts with my comments inserted, which I was happy to do, he gave me an excuse that ranks right up there with the worst ever: "I'm a lot busier than other people in the class."
And then when he pugnaciously demanded to know what I plan to do about the situation, I said, "If you don't turn in your paper, I plan to give you a 0. What do you plan to do about it?"
I probably should have told him that I'm a lot busier than other people in the class...way too busy to respond to such ridiculous demands.
4 comments:
Oh, my! Good job, but oh, so irritating!
Love your response!
I agree with Joy. Your response was perfect!
Hindsight offers the Quip that Got Away: When he told me he didn't look at my comments earlier because he "didn't know the e-mail would go down," I should have said, "What we have here is a failure to prognosticate."
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