Hey, here is some residential life humor (yes, there exists such a genre of humor). A colleague sent me this, and it illustrates the joy of working with parents:
Hello! You have reached our parents automated answering service. In order to assit you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all options before making a selection:
To complain about what we do/don’t do (or what your child says we do/don’t do), Press 1
To cuss out staff members and to remind us that your husband, father, mother, uncle, neighbor, neighbor’s friend, etc. graduated from our school and has power at our school, Press 2
To ask why your child didn’t get needed information that was already distributed to them via multiple fliers, emails, newsletters, etc. Press 3
If you want to reach out and touch, slap, or hit someone Press 4
To insist that your child’s roommate is crazy and needs to be moved out of the room, Press 5
To insist that your child’s roommate is a slob and that housekeepers (not your child or his/her roommate) must clean up their room, Press 6
To lie for your child about why they need some sort of absurd request (ie. “My child has a rare sleep disorder that requires they not have a roommate.”) Press 7
If you realize that this is the real world and that your child must be accountable/responsible for his/her own behavior, school work, roommate problems, judicial issues, etc., and that it’s not OUR fault that your child is lazy, unmotivated, unreasonable or is actually capable of doing wrong, hang up and have a nice day!
