I've Got a Bad Attitude

We librarian I's have to take these three classes through Ivy Tech to retain our status. It's me and Kim from Children's, who started after 2008, and poor Jon, who for some reason was not grandfathered in.

Getting into this class has been a nightmare from the get-go. We were informed in April we had to take these classes and the first one would be starting in August. So in June I sent an email to our training manager asking when we needed to register for classes and she said soon because classes would fill up.

I went later that week to register for the class, but even registering was not as simple as it might seem. Before I could register for the class, I had to apply to get in. I went to the online application form and tried filling it out. It wanted to know my name and address, no problem. Then it asked where I went to high school, still doing all right. Then it wanted to know when I graduated. I put in 1989, but that was not good enough. It wanted the exact month and day of the week. So I had to call my old school and have them look in their files to see when I graduated. Filled that in.

It did the same thing with my college. So I had to call and find out exactly what date I graduated from college. Okay. Then it wanted to know what my degree was in. I looked over their drop down list, but my degree - Bachelor of General Studies - was not there. I called IPFW's department of General Studies to see what school General Studies fell in, like Bachelor of Arts, etc. She said it was it's own completely separate degree and didn't fall under anything else. So I called Ivy Tech to find out what I should select, because God forbid I should not get accepted because I lied on my application!

The woman I got on the phone had only been working there for four days. The woman I needed to speak with was not there. So I left my name and number and question and asked that she call me back.

An hour later she called. She wanted to know what degree program I was going into. I told her I was taking library science classes but it was not for a degree. She said that would be under Library Technician. I explained again what I needed to know and she told me to just pick anything and that would be okay. And apparently it was because I got an acceptance letter in the mail a few days later.

I went to register for the class with my new username and password. Then I found out that before I could register I had to go take this Compass Test. Luckily not the math part, but still. Ugh. So I went in to take the test. When I got there the guy asked me if I had taken the test before. I said no. He asked if I was sure because there were scores under my name in the computer. I said I would have had no reason to take the test. He asked again if I was sure because the scores were good (implying a blasé "why bother taking it again, just use these random scores that somehow ended up in your file").

After assuring him that I had never taken the test, he got me signed in. He then told me just because there were random scores in my file did not mean there was a problem with the system. O-kay.

So I went to take the test. Under surveillance from a video camera. With no water. Because I might hide the answers in my water bottle or something. I am disappointed that I did not get 100%, but the problem is I get bored easily and then get distracted, so toward the end I was not paying very good attention to the questions. But I got like 97/94 or something on the two parts we had to take. (Jon got a better score than me, but I expected he would - he's brainy that way.)

After that I came back to work to register for the class. After dinking around on their horrible website and finally finding the place to register, I discovered the class was full and it would not allow me to put my name on a waiting list.

I dashed off an email to our training manager informing her of the situation and asking what we should do at this point. Weeks passed and nothing happened. Finally, with school starting the next week, I sent off another email and we heard back that our training manager had put several calls in to Ivy Tech and had not gotten a response, so she'd gone to the registration page and discovered 9 more slots had been added at some point. So I was able to register for the class that I did not want to take and had already jumped through hoops to get into.

I paid for the class I did not want to take with my husband's credit card. $433. The amount will be reimbursed by the library after I finish the course, so the amount gets to accrue interest and that does not get reimbursed. Good plan.

That was last week. I waited for my payment receipt to come to my email, but nothing arrived. Then I realized, I bet they're going to send it to my Ivy Tech account. When I checked there, lo and behold the receipt was in my inbox, along with 53 other emails which I quickly discovered had absolutely nothing to do with me or my class.

So I waited until the end of the week for class information to arrive. Now that I knew the secret of the Ivy Tech inbox, I was sure that is where explanations about where to go next would arrive.

But nothing did.

I sent a reply to the email address which had sent my receipt, asking if they could direct me to the proper place. I got a canned response that basically said, "Don't write to us here and find your own phone number." I scanned the website. I went to the department page for information, a contact number, something. I went to the Student Services page. I went anywhere it would logically be. Nothing.

So the first day of school arrived and I still had no clue what I was supposed to do. So I went back into my account and clicked on various things and eventually found my way to the blackboard, because I knew Kevin had posted stuff to the blackboard for his classes. There was a welcome message from the teacher. There were instructions about clicking on the syllabus link to find the course outline. But where was the syllabus link? I could not find it. Sure wasn't on the page where the instructions were. I eventually found it after clicking around.

Now I see there are already messages posted there. The only one I have read so far is from someone who likes wolves and doesn't have any children because she doesn't like them. So does this mean our first post is supposed to be sharing something about ourselves? I DON'T FREAKIN KNOW! I've read through all the syllabus, class session stuff, introductory messages, etc, and part of the instructions say I am to go to the discussion page and read the instructions on what the assignment is, but I don't see an assignment anywhere! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I cannot express to you how much I already hate this class, and it's only day one. But how much I hate this class is nothing compared to how much I hate Ivy Tech. The only website I have navigated through that was less user friendly is the State of Indiana's! AUGH!

So now I will go back to my little class thing and see if I can find directions anywhere. If you hear screaming, you'll know it's me.