Speshul Snowflakes

[ceebeegee]

Oh dear Lord. GOD, do I love college-age, entitled tools. They're like Halloween candy.

This is priceless:

College Student argues for the "right" to text in class, advancing the never-ever-before-used (and completely respectful to those professors who are grading him) argument that "I'm a paying customer, therefore I deserve to set the terms."

Some gems:

I’m sure others out there are experiencing my pain when it comes to professors and the obnoxious policies they implement regarding cell phone usage during lecture. In the past, I’ve tolerated their dictatorship like authority and snuck messages under the desk or behind my laptop, but that era is over. In my latest course, the professor thinks he has the right to automatically deduct 10% of a students final grade for any single use of cell phones: that means texting, tweeting, facebooking, and the like.

In most instances when it comes to colleges and universities, I find that they operate under a backwards business model. As a rule of thumb, customers come first. After all, satisfied customers means increased revenue and likeliness that references will be acquired. Nope. Not with education. Many academic institutions (from a financial standpoint, they are businesses) treat students with little respect. Yet, enrollment is ever growing. Why? Because “a degree is what you need to succeed” in today’s society. That means school officials operate under a do as I please system.

Oh, you poor, poor thing! Those horrible dictators! How dare they infringe upon your right to express yourself any. way. you. like. After all, you (and you alone, like not any taxpayers or corporations or anything) pay their salary, right?

No school has the right to bar me from texting during class. I pay their fees for a degree, in turn, respect my decision to text.

You GO, you just go. Soldier on, brave one. Fight the good fight for the rest of us!

Believe it or not, you are employed by me in this situation. “Deal with it,” as quoted by Tyler Durden. You get your paycheck one way or the other.

Oh, WOW. Yeah, that'll get them on your side.

As for “WHY” I text: I have a social life.

Just keep digging that hole.

I loved this, from one responder:

WHY is it so important to you to be allowed to play with your rattle while the grownup is talking?

And I loved the snark on the picture--that picture is just begging to be mocked:



I am special. I am SPECIAL.

He's SRSLY, you guys! He will not be ignored!

If there's one thing that I love to mock, it's children with over-developed sense of entitlement. I'd love to know what his parents think--I'm thinking they're helicopter parents. And on a more serious note, his attempt to reduce a college education, one in which he is privileged to participate by virtue of many factors beyond his control--a college education where you're given the Keys to the Kingdom and get to sit and learn and read and discuss and make each other smarter, more productive members of society and drink in the knowledge of the expert--to reduce it to some sort of business model, "I paid my fucking money, now give me what I want"--it makes me want to vomit. How dare you desecrate education like that? What. A. Tool.

Oh God--I'm giggling now, having followed a trackback to a weary professor's blog who talks about such students and their "self of steam" issues (apparently a common compositional misspelling in student papers). It took me a second to get that but now I'm laughing out loud.

Comments

[chillygator.livejournal.com]

If he really just wants a degree, I'm pretty sure you can buy those*. Why waste time in class when he can exercise his right to sleep in. Every day. For forever.

*In fact, I have an acquaintance who has purchased a few law degrees that way. I mean, she can't get a job to save her life, but at least she didn't have to waste time in a real school.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Exactly. His constantly-iterated insistence that college is strictly a financial transaction, instead of a community-supported social construct, so-supported because an educated population benefits the community, is disgusting. Maybe he should just stick to online learning, so he wouldn't have to attend lectures or be expected to participate.

One of the posters makes an excellent point when s/he says "a good boss never says 'because I pay your salary.' It's a terrible way to motivate people." Exactly. It's disrespectful and comes across as bullying--and WHY would you want to act that way toward the person who's grading you?

Based on the pic

[nswakko15.livejournal.com]

Ladies and Gentlemen...a future NY Douche!!!!!

Re: Based on the pic

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

I am forced to correct you--he is not a douche, his assholery has nothing to do with the dubious practice of feminine cleansing. He is a tool, a dick, a dillweed.

And please, let's hope he doesn't come here, we have all we can handle! OTOH, he will get chewed a new one as soon as he opens his entitled little mouth.

(My, the conversation has taken a decided turn for the vulgar! :)

Re: Based on the pic

[nswakko15.livejournal.com]

I was going with this definition of the word: "Douchebag, or simply douche, is considered to be a pejorative term. The slang usage of the term dates back to the 1960s.[6] The term refers to a person with a variety of negative qualities, specifically arrogance and engaging in obnoxious and/or irritating actions without malicious intent."
Anyone else feel this should end with the "The more you know" music and animation?

Re: Based on the pic

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know it's negative--I wasn't really taking you literally. But that word as a pejorative makes me uncomfortable because when analyzed, it's insulting a guy via proximity to girly bits. Like anything that touches a vagina is inherently disgusting or obnoxious or whatever. (And I won't even go into a history of "feminine cleansing" and how it was a man who first invented them and specifically decided upon a campaign to make women feel unclean and insecure just so he could sell a medically unnecessary device.) It's like when men insult each other by calling them pussy or bitch (like in that scene in 8 Mile when Papa Doc is humiliating Rabbit in the trailer park parking lot--he calls him bitch over and over). The insult is that they're essentially calling him a woman. I know that's not what you're saying but I'm an etymologist, and words' meaning and origins is significant to me. Inherent biases are reinforced every time we open our mouths--for example "hysteria" comes from the Greek word for uterus. Are they harmful? Sometimes, sometimes not--intent certainly matters, but it's worth exploring.

I know douche is the insult du jour when applied to a guy, but I wish people would go with a masculine insult. I just get tired of all things feminine being referenced when someone wants to insult a guy. Like, we should all call him a jockstrap.

Hey, I like that! "That dude, what a complete jockstrap." I'm going to use THAT from now on.

The more you know...

Re: Based on the pic

[nswakko15.livejournal.com]

I think jockstrap used to be used in the 80s.
Though I do find it interesting that a lot of curse slang is feminine rather than male, though you have to admit, they are also the better ones. Dick? not so harsh these days. And a-hole is gender neutral. Though there are definite feminine curse words that will get you thrown out in a heart beat.
Plus colostomy bag really just doesn't cut it.
I think my most random was I once called someone a catheter.

Re: Based on the pic

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Jockstrap isn't original? Damn.

I do like colostomy bag.

Re: Based on the pic

[planga.livejournal.com]

Things that touch girly bits *are* dirty. So that makes my junk extremely FILTHY!

I've always thought those kinds of insults were kind of odd, and probably the work of latent homosexual homophobes. In grade school I was called a dildo, and I said "so I'm something that would bring a woman sexual pleasure?" I didn't quite see where the insult was.

Re: Based on the pic

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

latent homosexual homophobes

In essence, yes. Ve must SCHTAMP OUT de femiNYNE! Ve vill haff only MANLY men.

I love that you coolly analyzed the insult.

Re: Based on the pic

[planga.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Finally I get some cred for my response. Being 12 years old or so, the response I got was "you're stupid, that's not what it means" which of course led to my followup "what does it mean then?" and the response "well, I'm not telling you!" So really I got no pleasure at the time from showing the other kid how dumb he was.

Re: Based on the pic

[minstrel70.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Would you not find it insulting to be called "manly?" "She's got some balls!"

I think in a nutshell that it's about being labeled a thing that you aren't.

Re: Based on the pic

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

It's all in the intent. When people say someone, male or female, has balls, it's a compliment. When someone says "what a vagina" (I've heard that), it's an insult. And there is a pattern of insulting men by alluding to the feminine, that doesn't exist in the reverse. There's no scene in 8 Mile or any other movie of a woman insulting another woman by calling her "manly" over and over.

Re: Based on the pic

[dry-2olives.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute... Sure, I agree it isn't appropriate to try and insult a man with a term that suggests that anything that touches a vagina is inherently disgusting or obnoxious or whatever. But then you call him a dick. Isn't a dick something that, in most cases, at least tries really hard to touch a vagina? Unless you're referring to a nickname for Richard, in which case I'm totally confused.

Re: Based on the pic

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

The point I am making is not to insult a man by referencing the feminine. I don't care if you call a man a dick, just as I don't care if you call a woman a douche. But it never works out that way, does it? When you insult men, you call them feminine names (bitch, pussy, douche). When you insult women you call them--feminine names (bitch, cunt, twat). It's the imbalance that bothers me.

Re: Based on the pic

[dry-2olives.livejournal.com]

I was just making a little joke, but I do understand and agree with your objection. The one that always confuses me is when someone says that something "blows" as if it's a bad thing. I think anything that blows should be loved and cherished.

[planga.livejournal.com]

I've always said it: college kids are stoopid. (If they were smart, they'd have graduated already.) My fave two bits:

In the past, I’ve... snuck messages under the desk or behind my laptop, but that era is over.

I love that he hid his texting and tweets behind a laptop without ever realizing that he can just do those things on. the. laptop. and not get caught with a phone at all.

from a financial standpoint, they are businesses

Isn't EVERYTHING a business from a financial standpoint?

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

You have to cut him some slack, Chris. He has self of steam issues.

[planga.livejournal.com]

I need to write a song called "Self Of Steam."

[planga.livejournal.com]

Here we go:

http://www.planga-la.com/stuff/ChrisCombs-SelfOfSteam.mp3

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

For an impromptu effort, that's damn good.

I could totally see you as a Greek poet on the street, declaiming improvised rhymes on the Trojan War or the Odyssey.

[planga.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm sure there will be a fleshed-out opera version someday. It really should end with him trying to teach kids who only pay attention to their holographic interplanetary chat cones, but that's really hard to rhyme.

I've occasionally thought about busking by making up songs about people on the subway, but that way lies broken ribs.

[dje2004.livejournal.com]

Urge to kill, rising...

[justducky2204.livejournal.com]

my mother has had students use that argument.

her response is that everyone else is also paying to be there and that if the texting/whatever bothers her it also must be bothering them and the texter doesn't pay for the right to interfere with other students' right to get what they paid for. she goes on to tell the texters that if they were to pay the other students' tuitions she wouldn't have a problem with it.

it works...every time.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

I didn't know your mother was a professor, how cool. What does she teach?

[justducky2204.livejournal.com]

She's a professor at Wingate in North Carolina. She teaches a few marketing classes and a marketing/lit crossover class.