For work study (or something like that,) I’ve been working on my school’s help desk. I find alot of humor in the way people behave when they feel that they “need” something to get done.

For example, I once had a father call who wanted to pay his son’s tuition online and it “needed” to be done “that day.” Unfortunately, he didn’t know his son’s password and wanted me to reset it for him. I can’t do that per some federal law that governs students’ privacy of their educational records (so I’m told,) so I offered to transfer him to the bursar who probably could have taken payment information over the phone, but he decided instead to mail a check. This was funny to me because the payment could have been made instantly, but he instead chose to deliver the payment through a medium that would take 2-3 days to arrive.

Here’s another example of the way parents try to “get things done” through my school’s help desk. My first phone call of the day:

Me: ITS Help Desk, this is Charles, how may I help you?

Someone’s Mom: Look, I just really need to reset my son’s password. If I’m paying the one paying the fees, wouldn’t it make sense that I have access to his account?

Me: I’m sorry, but we are not able to reset a student’s password for anyone other than the student per federal law.

Someone’s Mom: Fine, I’ll just keep calling back until I get someone to reset it for me. *click*

My second phone call of the day:

Me: ITS Help Desk, this is Charles. How may I help you?

Someone’s Mom: Oops, I got you again. *click*

There are usually only 2-3 of us at any given time and phone calls come in round robin. We sit next to each other. This technique of “getting things done” doesn’t work in this environment.