Hello everyone,

I hope everyone is having or have had a good day. My day has gotten off to a terrible start. A start so bad that I am compelled to vent here to you all. Maybe some of you can relate to my anger. Make no mistake, I will be venting due to anger. Let's quickly get up to speed...As some may know, I am a student. On occasion one has to contact the academic or financial departments for various reasons and today is a day that I had to contact the financial advisor of my university. For the time being I will leave the name of my university out of the story, however if you have read my initial blog, they are identified.

So, a day or two ago I spoke with the representative in the financial department who advised me that since the changes to the student loan program that the current administration has made, I would need to re sign my master promissory note. No problem, I E-signed it, bada bing. I call this morning to ensure that they have received what was required and to be proactive so that down the line there would be no "Oh, we need this or that" or the dreaded "we don't have it on file." I'm doing better than the government, while they tend to be reactive, at the federal and state level, I tend to be proactive. Why wait till things go wrong to take action. All who have had to deal with financial departments at universities know what I am talking about. You want your documents processed correctly the first time. Especially if there is grant or expense assistance involved.

So, I call. When I call the university, I am supposed to speak with military financial advisors as well as military academic advisors. I have found the attitude of the non military representatives to be uncaring. While my service was during peacetime, it is honorable service. I never feel the non military people treat the military students with any respect. This is evident in that I can always identify an individual on the non military side. Sadly today I ended up with this group on the phone. I initially spoke to Shaun. Shaun was unexcited to have a job in the economic climate we find ourselves in and apparently he found no comfort waking up today as a citizen of The United States of America. Maybe he just has no joy, you know, an ever burning source from within himself to sustain him during lean times. So, after 2 minutes of Shaun I asked and he confirmed that he was not on the military side. I expressed my desire to be transferred there and even told him why. The problem was he wanted me to give him my full SSN over a cell phone and I would not do it. That information is very important and could easily be intercepted off of a cell phone. Besides this, I did not start at the university today. I have been giving the last 4 of my SSN along with my name and other pieces of verifiable information. Now today for some unknown reason, the university has to have my full SSN even if it means giving it over an unsecured line. Identity theft is sometimes conducted by intercepting cell calls.

So, Shaun transfers me to Sholanda who is again, not on the military side, and most likely one of Shaun's peers. Sholanda was likely listening in on the call when I was doing the post call survey about the service I received today. She also most likely disconnected my from that call because the comments I made would be traceable to her via telephony. Maybe one day I will write on telephony. Anyway...

So let's recap why I am so angry, I am contacting my university to handle important financial information and the staff gives me the run around or hangs up on me purposely. I am not even being ugly to them. I just want to get my documents submitted in a timely manner. But the staff at the university that taught me ethics classes has people on it's payroll who would hang up on the most prized possession of the university, the student. Even after I told them I wanted to be transferred to military people they still refused to show respect to a soldier. I do not imagine they just treated me the way they did because the sun was out of position. They treated me this way because they are lazy, unappreciative and disrespectful to the university, it's soldier students and the nation that they served and or fought for.

The saddest thing is this is not the first time I have experienced this situation. It is shameful and reflects poorly upon the university. Those involved in such behavior should be shown the door and told "you're fired!"