Rude staff member (Psych department)

I went there the other day and it wasn't an issue for me. Just go in and speak respectfully and there shouldn't be a problem.

It's funny that you posted this today. I went into the psych main office for the first time this morning and had the same experience.

I had a little bit of trouble declaring last quarter as I hadn't declared a pre-major (but met all the requirements) and she seemed fairly nice and was helpful in figuring it all out. I came in with a smile and was polite and got the same back.

If you're friendly to them first, it's much harder for people to be rude.

 She is the meanest, rudest most unhelpful person I have ever had to deal with.

She lost my major declaration form TWICE!!!! and both times she pretended like she had never seen me before and told me I had to re-submit the forms... I ended up going to the department head to bypass her and it's amazing how easy life becomes without her.

Can we boycott her??

A bad day, maybe? I'd hate to hear this stuff said against me, personally...

Originally I had a few difficulties in dealing with the department, but that was before I got to know more of the people in it.  Diana, Ruth and Anna are actually very nice and helpful once you start talking to them more often.  Frankly, I haven't had any problems with people in the psych department whom could be described as you did.  If anything, I think the whole psych department is actually one of the better departments on campus and definitely more adept than some I've encountered.  Most people on campus (yes, even the registrar's office) are here to help and serve us students.  They want to make our lives easier and if you are nice to them, they will return the favor.  I can completely understand why some have developed a hard shell over the years and that's from having to deal with rude, know-it-all students.  If people could just have some respect for everyone, especially those in a higher position (the faculty and staff here), they would treat us with the respect we have earned (not deserved and not given freely).  Honestly, why should they be nice to us?  I've heard students speaking with faculty members here and it astounds me with what they get away with.  If I were their parents, these students would be chewing on a bar of soap for their trash-talking, disrespecting demeanor they give off to faculty and other adults.

If everyone is respectful, maybe the staff members will start returning the favor.  I don't blame them for being rude though.  As a side note, I am always respectful and considerate when speaking with the faculty and staff here and over the course of these past three years the times that I have encountered rude staff members I could count on half of one hand.  Everyone needs to remember the golden rule.  If you want to be treated with kindness and respect, deal it out yourself first.

From above somewhere: "If you're friendly to them first, it's much harder for people to be rude."

As I said, I make every attempt to be nice when I approach her or anyone.  That would be ridiculous to expect to be treated with respect if you start the conversation being the jerk.

There was another thread a while back about staff in the register's office being rude, and people made similar comments.  Why shouldn't we be able to comment on a staff member poor attitude or behavior?  They are, after all, at work, being paid to supposedly provide some sort of service to us, who paying to be here.  I didn't call her names or use abusive language.  If you had repeated bad experiences with a checker at a grocery store, you might be compelled to say something to their manager, or maybe even to them.  Or not, maybe you'd just avoid them and go to another line, but we don't have that luxery in dealing with our departments.  I'd hate to hear that people thought I was rude as well, but I'd also wonder about what I was doing that would make people feel that way.

Every quarter we get to write about our experiences with our profs, the department heads read them, the profs read them, and hopefully something constructive results.  They find out how we feel about them.  I think there should be some way for us to comment on our experiences with other members of the staff.  Right now, this is what we've got.

I don't think that this is an appropriate or constructive venue. I'm guessing that you're trying to feel things out and see if other people have had similar experiences, but I don't think that a public forum is the place to go. This forum is a mix of everybody on campus, from activists working every day to make the world better to people who draw large-breasted women covered in swastikas on bathroom stalls, and this type of commentary feeds people who draw prejudice on entire departments from single events. You made the analogy to cashiers and managers--assuming that Diane doesn't use these forums, these mentions go to neither. It's not much better than gossip.

This isn't "what we've got." In the time you spent writing this, you could've googled "wwu psych department" and found the e-mail address of the department head and sent your complaint there.

Regarding what harpb2 said:

Again, I am always nice to her.  Since I know I'll have to speak with her again, I don't want to deal with someone that hates me.  So I'm nice, despite of the reaction I always get.

I'd like to point out that not everyone that goes to college is a child, or some 18 year old just out of high school.  Some of us actually are adults.  In fact, some are actually older than the professors.  There are students who have kids or are married.  And not every 18 year old just out of high school treats their profs like crap and bad mouths everyone that slights them in some way.  The idea that the staff has a *right* to treat students badly because of the actions of probably a very few disrespectful kids (or anyone) is ridiculous.  That respect needs to *earned* is even more so.  It is the right of every person to be treated respectfully and humanely, perhaps until they do something to lose that right, but even then.  Attitudes like that are one of the root causes for so much misery in the world.

.........accept the things i cannot change........            Its not your fault that someone has a rude demeanor. Its not that big of a deal, bite the bullet.

I think the attitude that you've just presented here sums up why students on campus are treated the way they are.

I have the benefit of seeing both sides. I work on campus, at the parking office, and I'm a student on campus who has to deal with people like the art department desk woman, and other department heads, office staff etc. I can tell you that once you decide that the people working in the offices on campus are here simply to serve you that's when things will start to go downhill. 

In the parking office we deal with everything from meeting people who have never visited Western before and giving them directions to hotels and Thai food to very, very angry nasty people dealing with their multi-hundred dollars in tickets. Obviously this is different than simply declaring a major or dropping off a form but really, once I've dealt with a string of students verbally assaulting me I don't even want to try with the rest of them. I'm never mean, rude or try to make things difficult for anyone coming into the office but it does get tiring and I think that what's missing from this conversation is the notion that this is in fact someone job and I don't know about you but work gets old, I have other things to do besides deal with tickets (like filing all those appeal forms) and some days I just don't feel like dealing with things.

I've heard the same mentality used by junior high-schoolers to justify peeing on the walls in bathrooms and not cleaning up after themselves in the cafeteria: it's the janitor's job to clean. But, he/she also has regular maintenance, vandalism repairs, administrative functions, and filing forms; heck, some of the ones I knew even had to run shows for the auditorium.

I'd be just as mad at the people causing the callouses as the people living in them. And plus, they may have plenty of other skills that compensate. The services that they provide to the students who supply a portion of their salary may just as well be making sure that the department is able to survive, or that teachers have fewer trivial bits of form-filling that wear down on them (and transitively, the students).

Addendum: Referring to her job as "valuable solitaire time" doesn't exactly lay the foundation for mutual respect or fair online dialogue.

Great point.  We wouldn't need as many people cleaning up the school if we could all be responsible and throw away our own garbage.  I mean, come on people, how difficult is that to do?  I know that some messes are unavoidable and some things just get dirty from use, but why is there vandalism and large pieces of trash scattered throughout campus?  That is avoidable.

 that's just the election posters... 

jk. but seriously, it's not like we live in New York City or something, there is not THAT much garbage and graffiti.

Also, I think it is appropriate to post a discussion about a staff or faculty member that was difficult to work with. It opens a dialog that might not happen otherwise. 

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Lots of good points all around.  I agree that maybe this complaint should be leveled directly to the department head.  I have not had the experience that others have had with this person, but as a psych major, I am well aware of the level of disappointment among the many students who have come into contact with her - so this is not an isolated incident.

In your complaint, I would also refrain from speculating on the person's work habits as it is quite unprofessional, and it reduces your credibility.  I understand your frustration; I know the psych department is not perfect in its administration.  However, if you present a complaint in a concise manner, free from derision, it will say more than any post on a blog ever will.

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Asking a question like "where is my professors office" seems pretty ridiculous especially since you can easily find that information on the psych dept. website under faculty information.  It took me about 30 seconds to come up with that information.  Perhaps she is frustrated with students who don't make an effort to find answers to menial questions before asking her.  I don't mean to be harsh, you should just have more faith in your ability to figure things out or put forth more effort before giving up and asking someone else.  Honestly, she probably feels she has much better things to do than tell you things you can easily find out on your own.

RUDE STAFF MEMBER LOCATED ON WWU CAMPUS

NEWS AT 7

Yeah, I've had a lot of less than satisfactory experiences with the psych dept. office staff (not to be confused with the professors who are great). I thought it was just kind of the normal way of things but after going into both the chem and bio department offices and having VERY helpful and nice people talk to me, I think the psych department tends to be a bit discourteous.

I spotted a deer on the Ridgeway Complex.

I spotted FOUR deer next to the AIC.

It doesn't matter if you're a fist time person, a returning person, or a one time person, customer service is ALWAYS number one and if there is one experiance, espicially the first one, that turns a person off, then it is out of the question. The students should have to "get to know" the people working the desk. If I were a freshmman again and talked to her and got the responce, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with her and her department. HER first impression should always be good.

Yes, some people come in hostile, but that is the community and society that we have created for ourselves. You're a better person if you can put a smile on your face and assist the customer even if they are yelling at you. I can personally give you a story of my experiance of being called a bitch and a racist blanently to my face and I still kept a sound face and tryed to help my customer with the problem that they had with either me or the place in which I was working.

What would you feel if someone treated you rudely the first time you met them?

Yeah, unfortunately I have to agree with you. She's never very pleasant. I just try to poison her with sweetness. I feel worse for her than for me. I only have to deal with her for small periods, but she's got a post about how bitchy she is on the WWU forum and she probably won't ever change. Maybe [edited by moderator].

Not cool

Maybe her life really sucks. There could be a perfectly legitimate reason why she seems so grumpy all the time. That doesn't mean that students have no right to be upset when she is, but it's something to keep in mind before we all jump down her throat. (This isn't directed at the people who WEREN'T jumping down her throat.)

For those who get offended at anyone who criticizes her job performance, we do have a right to express that opinion. "I had a bad experience talking to her" is not rude or offensive. There have been a couple of slightly rude comments on here, and I am not defending those people.

Most people on here have been very polite in expressing their disapproval. I think most people get that she isn't a monster and are just upset about the way she treated them.

Personally, if I go in there the next time and she is pleasant, I won't hold onto any hard feelings from the first time I talked to her.

That would kind of piss me off, too. But I wouldn't start a thread about it.

Does nobody feel that these sorts of conversations are just internet gossip? Any other form of communication tends to fade; chit-chat, emails, notes have a very limited time-frame, yet this conversation is extensive and will exist until these forums are cleared. This is an entire discussion centering around one human being who, as far as I know, doesn't have any knowledge or any chance to make a case for herself, and even if she did, couldn't there possibly be generational differences in tone and communication on the internet that would even further misunderstandings here? (There's that damn ageism again...)  I guess my ultimate issue isn't that this is a complaint as much as it's a complaint behind the back, directed neither at her or her authority or seeking their inclusion, which in every encounter I've had, tends to make things way worse than they should be. In what way is that fair?

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I think its completely valid that the OP posted this. he/she is wondering if other people have had the same problem so they know that it is not an isolated incident. If they discover that nobody else is having this problem, they know to look elsewhere for the source of the problem. However, if others are also running into a bad attitude from this person, then the OP might feel more justified in going and making a complaint based on the knowledge that they are not alone.

As there have only been a few that have posted their experience with Diana, here is another:

All of my experiences with Diana and the office people in the Psychology department have been more than satisfactory.

Diana was extremely nice when I turned in my pre-major and major declarations last year. As well, recently I have had to interact with the Psych department desk for other reasons and she has been amazingly helpful. She even tracked me down in the psychology computer lab once to tell me something and make sure I had the information as soon as possible (above and beyond the call of duty in my mind).

After interacting with her through that stuff, she knows who I am and is even friendlier to chit chat with whenever I'm in the fourth floor psych area.

Long story short: No bad experiences from me.

This doesn't counter the negative remarks, but every coin has two sides...

With out the students, they have no jobs.  All faculty and staff need to recognize this. 

Well, the last time I checked, WWU was a public institution and the salaries are primarily paid by the state.  Much of what the university provides is from foundation funds and donations from other benefactors.

Let me let you in on a little secret. The curriculum, college and university system, the academic history, buildings you attend classes in, weren't paid for by you. In fact since most state employees salary is paid from state funding, your tuition actually does virtually nothing in terms of this persons actual salary. You pay for the right to attend classes here, the food you eat, the dorm you sleep in, the books you need, all in order to get the degree you seek, as well as a number of other privileges, such as the rec center, computer labs, etc.  A large quantity of the support services exist to assist you so that you can focus on this goal.

That is a far cry from ownership, or even some kind of implied debt.  You don't own the computers that your tech fee helped pay for, as they belong to the community.  Similarly, the person who's salary you mistakenly believed you paid for, doesn't owe you some kind of debt which then mandates some kind of forced obeisance.

I'm not excusing her behavior, specifically, but you definitely have the wrong idea.  It is obvious there is more than one opinion on the matter.  Rather than making sweeping generalizations about 'rude crap' your being given, turn that hyper critical examination inward.  It serves you better to iInform yourself first, gather as much fact as you can,  think about what you're really trying to say, then speak with a reasoned response.

This is a very bad solution, at least as a first step.

Whether you believe it's isolated or not, formalized complaint as a 'out of the gate' suggestion short circuits effective communication.

Alright, I'm going to go with something brave and new and innovative.  Noone has ever heard of an aswer like this one.  Ready?

Talk to her about it.

If you believe is being rude to you, ask them about it.  Don't be abrasive, don't be passive-aggressive, don't be rude yourself.  Often people who are having a bad day, or week, or year, will benefit greatly from calling attention to the behavior, as sometimes it's not intentional or even conscious.

I know a lot of people who appear rude, who simiply have different mannerisms.  Absent minded professor types, people with forceful personalities, people with Asperger's, quiet or even shy people can be considered rude when that's not their intend.

In short, if it's someone you must deal with, you're probably better off trying to form a connection with the person or find out why they are treating you a certain way, rather than filing an 'official' complaint.  At least, not as a first step.

Some people can't help but be rude or behave in a manner that is consistently abrasive to those around them.  If she proves herself to be one of those people then it might be appropriate to complain to a supervisor or the department, but without talking to her first, how can you know?

Look at it this way, if someone had a problem with you at your job, would you rather them come to you first, or talk to your supervisor?

And without the staff and faculty you wouldn't have a place to learn, grow, and hopefully prosper.  It is a mutually beneficial relationship.

 MENOPAUSAL DEER PEEING ON THE WALLS 

NEWS AT 7

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Constructive as ever I see.

Is THAT what you were singing about?  I couldn't quite tell, it seemed like you were trying to serenade me.

So, your comment about the person 'not deserving' a job.  Is that a standard you would apply to yourself as well?

Thanks for offering your assessment of my intellect level.  Seriouisly, is namecalling your only solution? Personally, I'd much rather you offer something constructive, rather than just attempting to induce a negative reaction.  Is there there something wrong with my suggestion here or my ideas in particular?  If you disagree with something I've said, state why.

Your posts seem to exist for the sole purpose of inducing or protracting conflict.  I can't help but suspect that you're lashing out at whatever targets present themselves.  I'm not sure what needs you're fulfilling by attacking people, but my suggestion to you is to consider finding someone to help you work through these issues.