Time To Grow Up...
Carleton University students are feeling truculent and rather put out that they are being informed they are expected to pay for the services that they use. University students are in a continual state of straitened financial circumstances, trying to stretch their unbudging loonies as far as they can go, but they are also expected to be mature and intelligent and responsible as adults attending institutes of higher learning.
In any society knowingly taking steps to dodge licit responsibility as a mature adult is considered to be illegal, and as such an affront to that society's values. Sure, we all like the thought of getting something for 'free', without having to strain the budget for fundamental necessities. On the other hand, someone has to pay for services that are available, and why not those very people who make use of the services?
Seems to make sense. If stretching that loonie is really all that difficult, then balance the desirability of clean clothing against an evening brew at the pub or a coffee from Tim Horton's against one you make yourself and stick in a thermos bottle. Education is a subsidized commodity in Canada, paid for by tax dollars, like most everything else of social and public value.
Students and/or their families are responsible for paying their portion of tuition, and along with that, the cost of living. It's a simple reality. But it appears some clever Carleton students discovered that the swipe cards they use for all kinds of purchases on campus did not necessarily bill them for campus laundry facilities if they punched in a specific code number, enabling them to use the facilities without charge.
While they weren't being charged, through this clever little distancing from responsibility, the university was, discovering that they were $28,000 short of an invoice from the laundry room operator. Obviously someone was bypassing the system and their personal accountability. Except that the university was able to identify those individuals and to figure out how many times they'd bypassed the system with their swipe cards.
And they are now billing those students commensurately for their unpaid use of the laundry facilities. More than sixty students owe over $100 each, while one student owes $342 in unpaid laundry services. "It's completely unfair and just another method for the university to off-load its costs onto the students. It was a glitch in their system and not the students' fault", said Karim Khamisa, president of the residence association.
Well, not quote. The discovered 'glitch' in the system, enabled unscrupulous students to bypass the system, to neutralize it from automatically and necessarily billing their accounts. Knowing full well that they were taking advantage of services for which they should be paying. Who else would be paying for those services if they eschewed their personal responsibility? Well, the university, and ultimately the taxpayer.
A brilliant decision that was not.
In any society knowingly taking steps to dodge licit responsibility as a mature adult is considered to be illegal, and as such an affront to that society's values. Sure, we all like the thought of getting something for 'free', without having to strain the budget for fundamental necessities. On the other hand, someone has to pay for services that are available, and why not those very people who make use of the services?
Seems to make sense. If stretching that loonie is really all that difficult, then balance the desirability of clean clothing against an evening brew at the pub or a coffee from Tim Horton's against one you make yourself and stick in a thermos bottle. Education is a subsidized commodity in Canada, paid for by tax dollars, like most everything else of social and public value.
Students and/or their families are responsible for paying their portion of tuition, and along with that, the cost of living. It's a simple reality. But it appears some clever Carleton students discovered that the swipe cards they use for all kinds of purchases on campus did not necessarily bill them for campus laundry facilities if they punched in a specific code number, enabling them to use the facilities without charge.
While they weren't being charged, through this clever little distancing from responsibility, the university was, discovering that they were $28,000 short of an invoice from the laundry room operator. Obviously someone was bypassing the system and their personal accountability. Except that the university was able to identify those individuals and to figure out how many times they'd bypassed the system with their swipe cards.
And they are now billing those students commensurately for their unpaid use of the laundry facilities. More than sixty students owe over $100 each, while one student owes $342 in unpaid laundry services. "It's completely unfair and just another method for the university to off-load its costs onto the students. It was a glitch in their system and not the students' fault", said Karim Khamisa, president of the residence association.
Well, not quote. The discovered 'glitch' in the system, enabled unscrupulous students to bypass the system, to neutralize it from automatically and necessarily billing their accounts. Knowing full well that they were taking advantage of services for which they should be paying. Who else would be paying for those services if they eschewed their personal responsibility? Well, the university, and ultimately the taxpayer.
A brilliant decision that was not.
Labels: Economy, Human Relations, Realities, Social-Cultural Deviations, Whoops
posted by Pieface @ 6:07 PM
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