Story and images by Jennie Thomas
“If the phone rings one more time I’m going to…” but I was unable to finish the idle threat. I was cut off by the chirping ring of the office phone at RIT Housing. It was only Monday afternoon on March 16. The night before, RIT sent out an email at 4:00 pm, telling students not to return to campus and classes would be online the rest of the semester. It was week 2 of spring break and RIT had few answers at that point. No one really had any answers. Everyone was scared by rumors that spread faster than a virus. Whispers of the country being locked down lead to students and families wondering if they would be able to stay or return home. Every hour we had new information from the bosses.
I answered the phone after a slight pause for dramatic affect.
“Thank you for contacting RIT Housing. This is Jennie speaking, how may I help you?”
“Hello Jeannie, I’m the parent of a student that goes to RIT and…” began the parent, then citing a laundry list of grievances they have about the current situation and how RIT is handling it. I sat on the phone with this specific parent for twenty minutes. I listened to them explain their predicament several times and ask for special accommodations that I could not give them.
The calls were repetitive, covering the same topics: questions about storage, staying on campus, moving out, key returns, etc. When it is a student calling, usually they ask a few questions, make a comment about how weird, stupid or stressful the situation is, and then thank me for my time. When it is a parent on the phone, the calls are not as easy. This isn’t a black and white situation. There are times when I’ve had very pleasant conversations with parents. However, this week, that didn’t happen as much.
The situation was constantly changing and evolving. Misinformation spread faster than the truth. There were certain points where the only thing I could say was, “I’m sorry, we just don’t know”. So answers on Monday when students believed they could stay until a certain day or leave their belongings changed to trying to get all students off-campus as soon as possible. These changes frustrated and angered many people. They were a result of an executive order by Governor Cuomo, and because he’s a difficult man to reach, it seemed most people called RIT Housing instead to air their grievances.
Usually, the ones with the most grievances are the parents. This could be because they are the ones paying for their students’ housing, or because they want to protect their children. I don’t blame them for being frustrated or angry, but I also don’t like being yelled at.
How do I handle being reprimanded for decisions that I did not make, for misinformation I did not spread, and for rules and regulations I did not write?
Empathy.
And humor.
My two strongest characteristics are my bleeding heart and my ability to make a joke at any point in time. When I am angry or sad or dealing with some else’s emotions I tend to make jokes. I’m sure psychologists would call this a coping mechanism, but it’s how I choose to live my life.
At this very moment, we are all in a situation where we can’t control most of our life. Because of this, people will try to exercise control over the few things they think that they still can. Parents will call their student’s college to yell at an employee for silly rules and regulations. I will get frustrated with my roommate for being a messy person. My neighbor will yell at her kids for their roughhousing.
Sometimes people just need an outlet, and for those parents that outlet is me.
I want to say that I was able to come to this realization on my own, but I wasn’t. It was my boss who came to me after a tough phone call. A student was upset because she went home for spring break. Home, for her, was a country in South America, whose borders had since closed. She was angry and crying. I didn’t know what to do. It was nearing the end of the day and I was frustrated. My boss took the call in her office. She spent thirty minutes on the phone with this crying girl.
“How did it go?” I asked cautiously, as my boss appeared from her office
“It was fine,” she said cheerily. I stared at her, perplexed by her smile. “She just needed someone to vent to,” my boss explained, “We were laughing about it by the end.” That was when I realized my mistake with the student. I acted as a mirror. I reflected her anger and frustration back at her rather than helping her.
Since that call, I was able to rely on my ability to understand someone else’s situation and my sense of humor to de-escalate phone calls. Of course, I’m not perfect. I still got frustrated and I still needed to walk away sometimes, but I am better able to recognize and handle situations now. While this experience sucks, I have been able to learn and grow from it. We’re all stuck in a shitty situation for the time being, so maybe we need to be more understanding of each other and maybe we need to laugh just a little bit more
