Struggling to say No!
Being polite to me actually meant to say yes for even what was not possible for me to do. Just to satisfy the people who you like, love or you work for. I have refused people who beg, who try to exploit or who try to compel to act against my will. But in most cases I have always said yes. This is beginning to change. Before that i wanted to look into why is it difficult to say no and easy to say yes. Being raised religiously with all the catholic piety, that was mostly self propelled to become a missionary, or to become a role model with a romantic idea of being a great proselytizer who could change the world through work and through preaching brought in the thought of a good person always says yes. He is willing to go through the struggles to fulfill that yes.
When it comes to work in a professional administration it is a different ball game. I believe that I am in a helping profession and therefore I need to say yes to people who come to me. YOu need to teach them to fish but that needs a lot of time and effort, or at times it demands giving things or giving time. Knowing fully well that it is not possible to do this always is a pain. Not being able to help others in pain is a terrible feeling. Especially if you want to and you cant because you either dont have the means or the position doesnt permit can cause a lot of stress.
It is here that the professional boundaries become dominant to help me. In my office I meet several students who come to see me for many reasons, mostly academic. In November 2012 our office announced the registration for internal arrears. This was meant for the even semester. a dead line was set to 5th December and extended up to 7th December with a small penalty. The deadline passed and we still had students coming in to register. Given the track record of the previous years we had to permit the late comers with a larger penalty. We decided on a final, final closing date. The long line of students continued. Now it was time to decide, we said we will give time till the beginning of the christmas vacation, that is the 20th of December.
The college re-opened on the 3rd of January 2013. We still had students coming. We were also permitting them. In my mind, I was disturbed as we were acting well past our deadlines. I was not willing to tow the previous years' models. So the decision was made to draw the iron curtain. This is the time when saying no begins. Now parents started to come along with their wards. Pleading that they did not know the dead line. Their ward was sick/met with an accident and was in the hospital. The results that came after the deadline indicated that the ward failed. They had only one internal paper to complete the course. One parent even said, "you have decided to ruin my son's career". One student said,"I beg at your feet please permit me this time" another candidate said, "My life is dependent on this I want to continue my higher studies". Apart from this some non teaching staff also started fielding their candidates' plea.
This was the time to hold on to my senses and take a good look at every case. This enabled me to look beyond the violation of the deadline. The cases where the parents came in was much more serious than what met the eye. One candidate was completely absent for an entire semester, he had failed due to lack of attendance in two full semesters. This case had no merit. The case where another student was in the hospital was a defaulter once again in the attendance. During his regular years of study his parents had never bothered about his studies or class attendance but wanted him to pass now.
One other case where the fuming father kept arguing had to be silenced by questioning his responsibility as well. In the case of a friend who carried the papers of the hospitalized candidate, we questioned the ability to write the exam immediately without attending a single class. The final candidate who had the staff recommendation had failed despite being granted special permission earlier.
This helped in the process of deciding. We had to Say NO. But made sure how we said it. I had to convince myself first, that, I was acting out of a clear conscience. I wanted to help. I was unable in this case. Going by the merit I had to say no. Here refusal, I thought did not bring down the career of a candidate. So I had to say no and still struggle with it.
