Finally, something the Aussie's did right.

http://peaceofmind.posterous.com/actual-message-on-school-answering-machine-in-1

 

Excellent.

 

Well done Australia.

 

Which number do I press if I'm a student in my graduating year who needs assistance from the secretarial staff at my school for information about documentation?

Which number do I press if I or my teenager is new to the school and is looking for information about facilities, the school's disabled students policy (both physical and mental), etc.?

Which number do I press if I'm a member of the local news media, a community organizer, or have been invited to present to somebody's class and need to call the school for whatever reason?

Which number do I press to schedule an appointment with an administrative faculty member, teacher, or other school staff?

Which number do I press to ask questions about parent-teacher nights, extra-curricular activities, and scholarship information sessions?

Which number do I press to inform the school ahead of time of temporary absences due to a medical appointment?

Which number do I press if I need to pull a student out of class because a close relative has just passed away?

Which number do I press if I'm your district's superintendent and I wish to complain about the brazen lack of professionalism in one of my schools?


Secretarial staff exist to answer the phone and organize documents. That is their job. Before this answering machine message, the lawsuit was a complete throw-out case. Now, people are thinking that it's no wonder those kids didn't show up for school.

When I went to high school, the secretaries would continuously put graduating students' transcript requests on the back burner. I kept giving them my transcript, explaining them that the University I was applying for required them to mail my transcripts in a sealed envelope to ensure nobody could tamper with it. Every Friday, they would hand it back and tell me that I had forgotten to include a fax number (presumably so they could fax a picture of the sealed envelope). My friend's Dad walked into their office the day his son's transcript was due, pulled it out of their files, and faxed it himself. Even with this level of incompetency, if any of us had called the school to discover this answering machine message, we would have raised such a terrible shitstorm that the Atlantic Provinces would have broken off of Canada and sank into the Atlantic.

I think kids should be responsible for keeping up with their own education, especially since it is (almost) free. However, the tax dollars that go into the education center and ensure everybody gets a free education are part of the same fund that pays for secretaries. If the staff of this High School wants their students to be responsible, they need to stop acting like a bunch of high schoolers themselves.

 

Ah, sometimes the public school system gets it so very very right. (And Grak, you're taking it way too seriously.)

 

Oh my self....that's bloody wonderful...why can't we be blessed with such uncommon sense?
Grak, it's a simple satire about how Western educational systems have become nothing but nanny shops for parents who are too damn lazy to take basic care and responsibilty of their own damaged retirement funds.

 

All right. You get a point for that one. *chuckle*

"If you want us to raise your child, press 6"....priceless!

 

The audio file is hilarous and has a point, it's great for a laugh and as a satire, but stops being funny if there is no other way to normally contact an existing school by phone. I wouldn't say Grakelin is too serious about it, he's just using common sense. I wouldn't have any reservation if under 'zero' there was possibility of "no, none of those was the cases I hand on my mind, I just wish to contact the secretariat and tell/ask/complain about something reasonable and please kick me in the scrotum and call me a brainless yeti if I'm lying right now".

 

So what do school secretaries do in Australia?

This doesn't even cover other things I left out because they didn't seem applicable to Australia in the first place. I used to have to call the school early in the mornings on some stormy days to make sure that school was actually in session, and if so, if the bus would be picking me up.

The 'press 5' option does not help me if I have a query about an event, or if something was not actually enclosed in a flier (my high school didn't even distribute their newsletter anyways, they just placed them on a desk outside the office).

While I understand that school secretaries are sad, hopeless souls, what exactly do you pay them for there? They seem to have even less responsibilities than the fail staff I had to deal with, and I went to the school with the lowest literacy rate in Canada.

I'm not trying to just be a tightass in general. I did have a lawl at the recording. I just don't feel it has any place actually being the answering message of a government building. I have lots of things I'd like to say to clientele at places I've worked (though, I've never had anything other than crummy minimum wage pleb work, either, so maybe it's not my place to say), but I've still never left an answering message that said

"If you want to call to ask about another department in the store, press 1. If you want to tell us what an outrage it is that we have no more cheese, press 2. If you want to complain about having come here from an outlying village, rather than utilize similar services next door to your house, press 3."

as much as I would like to.

 

What number do I press when someone on the forums is a spoilsport who doesn't get it?

 

Brew coffee, give handjobs to the higher ups, and make the unemployment rate appear to be lower.

 

If they took the salaries of these people and put them into, say, a scholarship program, I bet it would improve the Australian education system a little bit.

 

That philosophy would work wonders if they also included all posistions of managerial status and higher. Imagine it: an office in which the people are paid decently, actually work and produce a service, and do it efficiently. It could rework the entire global economy.

 

It's a chai tea and YouPorn. >.>

 

You know, some of us like working for those type of bureaucracies.