Wednesday, April 26, 2006 | by nathan

Still Not Ready To Make Nice

Some notes to University of Oklahoma journalism students. Especially those whose concentration is PR or Advertising:

(1) There is absolutely no need to slam your ID down in front of the computer lab attendant. Similarly, there is no reason to get angry when I tell you that you may not check in using a driver’s license. I think this is a stupid rule, too, but I’m not going to get in trouble with my boss because your dumb ass was too stupid or lazy to put your student ID card in your wallet.

(2) Leave the goddamn drinks outside. And don’t argue with me when I ask you to do this. The computers - and all software with which they are so conveniently loaded so as to save your parents the expense of buying it for you - cost more than your entire education. And who do you think your parents are suing when you spill your Big Gulp on an iMac keyboard and lose your senior project and get a minor electric shock? Yes, me, that’s who.

(3) If someone is in broadcasting master control and the dubbing machine is running, you may safely assume that they are dubbing a DVD. What you may not do is ask, "Can I turn this off? I have to copy a tape." Also, when that person says, "no, that machine is in use and you may not stop it," you may not go get that person’s boss to try to make them stop what they are doing and let you do what you have to do, which, despite what you may think, is NOT more important than what anyone else is doing. 

(4) If there is a class happening in the studio, that means you are not welcome to waltz in, sit down at the Director’s computer, and start doing all your iNews shit. And when someone tries to politely tell you that there is a class happening, and can you please move, you really should not act as if he is not there. Because this is a really good way to get a pinch on the back of the neck or a twisted ear, or, worse, a Spanish lady yelling at you.

(5) My job is not to do your work for you. Yes, I know how to work InDesign, Photoshop, Toast, Firefox, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SPSS, Safari, Final Draft, and the whole host of programs available to you. But so should you. You had to take classes about these programs. If you didn’t listen - sorry. I’m not doing your work for you. I don’t get paid enough.

AND LAST:

(6) Good manners and kindness will take you much, much further in the world than bitchiness and entitlement. Also, the main religious traditions of the world - including the particular brand of "Christianity" to which your homeboy George W. subscribes - say that you should stop being an asshole right away, lest you get to Heaven and have to sit in the Mean People’s Room, with Ann Coulter and Leona Helmsley and Dick Cheney.

I mean, ask you: who raised these people? Do they have parents, or do they grow out of the Mean People Garden, fully grown and entitled, self-aggrandizing, and rude? If I, at five years old, had acted the way some of the students in the Gaylord School of Journalism act on a daily basis, my ass would have got beat down.  

I get that it’s almost finals, and everyone is stressed, but time spent abusing your fellow students - or worse, the graduate students who very well may be grading you in the near future - is time better spent studying.  

But I may be a little grouchy, too.