It's been awhile...

I was looking at a friend's blog and realized that it's been five weeks since I've posted anything. School is good. I had my first bad experience with rude staff at school. I must have been hyped up from the possibility of giving my final presentation in a class, because when the lady told me I needed to stop arguing with her and that she wasn't going to let me test if she had to explain anything to me again, I left astounded and dumbfounded. So when I recounted the situation moments later, I was on the verge of tears with the receptionist in Advising and actually did burst into tears with my Advisor. Insert wavy lines and flashback scenario here...

A non-traditional student, Me, walks into the placement testing center. She doesn't have any real insecurities about the situation, because, thus far in her community college career, she has encountered helpful, mostly friendly people. The receptionist in the placement center asks why she is there. I tell her that I'm there to take a math placement test. She says, "Uh, you can't just take one part of the test. You have to take the whole thing." So I reply, "Well, I was told in advising that I only need the one test. I have prior college experience and math is the only class that I need a placement test for." She looks a little confused, well a lot confused, and catches the eye of a lady walking by her desk. "She says she needs only the, uh, math test." Older lady says, "That's fine. Just write math on the slip." The receptionist hands me two slips of paper and says, "Fill this out to six." I smiled and said, "Thank you." Then proceeded to walk confidently to a table to fill out my form. Then another lady calls my name. I respond with a, "Yes. That's me." She walks over and takes my forms as I'm completing them. As she's looking them over she says, "You need to put a semester on here." I flushed a little and said, "Oh sorry. I wasn't exactly sure if you needed the semester I'm in here at the college or the semester that I'm needing to take the placement test for." She snapped back, "Yes." I'm thinking, is it really that crazy for me to have a little confusion with the one word instruction? So I write the semester that I need to register for that is the reason for me taking the placement test. She takes the papers from me. We walk over to her desk and she starts to type my student number into the computer. Then she looks up at me and says, "You need permission from a counselor in order to take this test."
I said, "Yes, I know. Ms. White put a note in my file that authorized me to take the test."
She said, "There is no note in your file. The only thing that is in here has to do with biology. There is nothing about taking the math placement test."
I said, "Well Ms. White put a note in there and said that it's in there, make sure they look for it."
She snapped back, "There is no note."
I then asked, "Are you sure? Because she said that the note was good for a week and as long as I came in this week that it would fine, but I couldn't wait longer than that, because they expire."
She asked, "Did this happen today?"
"No, it would have been...last week Tuesday or Wednesday."
"There is no note."
"Ms. White put one in there."
"If I have to explain any part of this again, I'm not letting you take the test today."
"I just don't understand. I was told that as long as I came in this week that was fine. So now I have to start all over again?"
"What do you mean start all over again?"
"I'm sorry, I mean that now I have to go back to advising, sign in and wait for Ms. White, have her put the note in again, come back up, and, by that time, it will be past the testing time. Then, I'll have to wait until next week." I glanced down at my watch and saw that it was already 2:00 p.m. and I didn't know how strict they are with the test times.
"You don't have to wait for Ms. White. Any counselor will be able to put a note in. If you hadn't wasted all this time arguing with me you would have made it back."
I'm thinking what the heck, woman!!!! "Okay, that's fine. I'll go down and see what's going on." So I left and headed down to Advising.

Once in advising, I recapped the scenario to the receptionist and near the end my voice started to break. She asked me if I was okay, and I replied, "Yes, I guess I'm just a little flustered." She told me to have a seat and that Ms. White would be available soon. When I went into Ms. White and retold the story, I did start to cry. She apologized for not having any tissues and gave me a little drink napkin. Then she showed me that the note is in my file, that all you have to do is scroll down, and we talked about my options for taking the test at a later date. I told her to leave the original note, because I was going back to the Placement Testing center immediately to make sure that lady knew the note was in my file.

Back in the Placement Testing office, I wasn't able to talk to the crabby lady because she was giving instructions. So I waited. While waiting the receptionist from the Advising office came up and pretended to look for some papers. When she saw the lady that had upset me she asked if that was the lady. I positively id'd the perp. and she said under her breath, "I'll let her boss know." I talked to a different lady who was very nice and said that when I come back to only deal with her. She said that I wasn't at fault and said I could still take the test if I wanted to. I thanked her and said I was just not in the headspace anymore. I was extremely pleased that crabby lady did learn that the note was in there, and I kind of hope she feels bad for being so rude. Realistically, I know that she doesn't, but it would be nice. After I left there I went back to advising to have Ms. White put a new note in. She told me to wait until the day I planned on taking the test or the day before.

I went in today and took the test. The algebra levels are as follows: pre-, elementary, intermediate, college. I did some review and hoped to at least place into elementary. I took the test and the nice lady was extra helpful and polite to me. I finished, she brought my little slip over, and then directed me to go see my counselor. She said that they would interpret the slip. I saw MTH 140 (aka Intermediate Alegebra to us community college types), but didn't know if the code was more in depth than that. So I went to Advising and eagerly awaited the interpretation of my placement slip. Ms. White came out and looked at my slip and she said, "You can fill out your form, and I'll sign it." I asked, "Well what math should I look for?" She said, "It's right on there MTH 140." I flushed and smiled really big and asked, "Really?!? I tested into MTH 140? I was hoping to at least test into Elementary, but Intermediate?" Ms. White looked at me and smiled, "It's always the smart ones who are so surprised that they are smart." I blushed so more and left the office because I needed to think about my schedule. So take that crabby placement testing lady.