Monday, August 23, 2010
Wow....
Blogger really doesn't delete old blogs. I'm happy this is the case, since I like posting to the Internet. Anyway, it's been over a year since I last left a missive, so let's review. First, it's been a tumultuous year for this financial aid counselor. The biggest challenge was nearly getting fired. I'm close to a former international student ("Anya") from Germany, who made the mistake of romancing a married man. There's nothing all that uncommon in that, but he was an employee here, and I believe she was taking classes when he frosted her strudel. Moreover, his wife also worked here, and they met while she was a student and he was married to someone else! Wow. Also, two other men were somehow involved, but to what extent and how I still do not know. None of the above info tells my tale of woe, but it is important to know the back story.
The investigation (and what precipitated it I still do not know...) led the school to read her emails, which then showed that this young lady and I were friends, and we hung out quite a bit. Translation: I spent tons of loot on her. Also, our plan to travel to Florida together was confirmed via the same email address, so my spot was blown up, down, and all over the carpet. Since rules were broken (by others), 4 people were terminated at a place that (almost) NEVER fires anyone. Higher ups were looking to place my head on the mantle as the final trophy, and with that I faced my Dean who questioned me concerning the nature of our relationship. She's a bright woman, and although she believed me when I said nothing romantic happened, she also understood that I did actually have feelings for this coed. I should note that Anya is 26, not 18 and fresh out of high school. I was blindsided with this Holy Thursday, and there was no one I could speak to, with no other managers on campus for the rest of the week. Needless to say, I was a wreck. I was so convinced I would be fired, I spent the weekend clearing my veteran benefit problems so the next person to hold my position wouldn't need to clean my mess. I spent all of Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday researching attendance and de-certifying those who did not perform. The total was 14 hours with 6 on Saturday and the rest on Sunday. I was lucky I even made it to Easter dinner.
Violating Catholic protocol aside, this probably turned out to be the smartest move I made for the year. You couldn't have told me that at the time, of course, and was seriously considering an honorable suicide rather than living with the failure of losing a job others would kill to have. I went as far as to have a plan (pitching myself off the Bear Mountain Bridge or possibly the Tappan Zee) and I wrote a note to act as a will, ask my family to forgive me, and not hunt and murder Anya, This would have been a hard sell, since they hated her before all this went down anyway. I didn't share this plan with many people, as loose lips sink ships, and also get nice financial aid counselors locked in psych wards while heavily medicated. I was having none of that, though I did let a few people know what was happening, but only in a general sense. My program friends were in shock and worried for my safety. My colleagues worried about my career, and with good reason. Assuming I did not commit hari-kari, I'd still be dead as far as my profession is concerned. You don't come back from sexual misconduct, period, and rightfully so. I did let a couple of people know just how far I'd fallen, and what I intended to do about it. These were people with similar histories who would both understand and not panic.
Once the weekend passed, I began to mount a counter offensive. I spoke to both my bosses and the union. With that the defense began to gel, and I started to feel slightly less crazed, though no less worried. The upshot was as follows: if I had slept with her, I most likely would be fired; at minimum, the college would seriously move against me. As an international student, I had no financial aid to give her, but the appearance of impropriety might have been enough. Of course, no sexual congress had convened. International status or no, you do not sleep with students.
Either way, I did develop an emergency plan in case I lost my job. A friend had taken an ESL teaching certification program in NYC, and although she was hardly enamored with the job itself, she did give the program an enthusiastic endorsement. That simple tidbit of knowledge was enough to sooth my rattled nerves. Part of my panic and depression was the understanding that I have no real skills save financial aid. This is strange for a guy who primarily worked in restaurants, but that was long ago. I'm not really qualified to do, well, anything else. I would have to go back to school in some way, and that depressed me to no end. The ESL course was short, affordable, and highly regarded. I could get a job, and even teach outside the USA to both decompress and save money. A little adventure wouldn't have hurt either. Only months later did I told her how much this helped me. She may very well have saved my sanity and life.
Weeks and months passed with meetings, firings, and investigations. The emails were both my albatross and my saving grace. They did confirm I was spending far more time with her that the college would otherwise like, but they also backed up my protestation that I was never intimate with Anya. Eventually it came down to a small book loan program available to those not getting aid. They were trying to use this to have some black mark against my employment record.
Essentially, (and I'm editorializing here) while I did nothing wrong, per se; I was also unwise in my enmeshment and the college did not want to create a precedent saying what I did was acceptable. They wanted to have some sort of penalty to demonstrate their disapproval of my actions. It never happened, though I was never officially cleared either. As the weeks passed and my termination became less likely, I burned my suicide note with the friends who knew all that was going through my mind. Easter was in early April lst year, and my anniversary date at the college is October 1st. This date comes with a raise, although it is not automatic. I can be denied, but only with cause.
Obviously, I just wrote 8 paragraphs of "cause," and I knew that even if things were never officially resolved, if I got the raise I was in the clear. Until then, a black cloud would follow me. On October 3rd it was gone, hopefully to never return.
Epilogue: I never blamed Anya for what happened to me, although she is fully culpable for what happened to the married man. She was a willing participant, and so was I. We're still friends, but spending time with her is too painful these days. This is not because of the job, but being with someone you truly like when she doesn't feel the same way really sucks. I did tell her that if I was fired I would have married her immediately to protect her from my family, among other reasons. However, I still wouldn't have gotten any. So, as an bookend to my self-inflicted tale of woe, why was it so beneficial to work that weekend? Well, I did get the hours as overtime, and 2 days later the VA office in Albany called to arrange an audit. I laughed out loud and invited him for a visit. I was never so happy to be inspected in my entire life. I passed with a perfect score, and no matter what happened, I was very happy to have my efforts validated that afternoon. I honestly needed it; things were really touch and go.
The investigation (and what precipitated it I still do not know...) led the school to read her emails, which then showed that this young lady and I were friends, and we hung out quite a bit. Translation: I spent tons of loot on her. Also, our plan to travel to Florida together was confirmed via the same email address, so my spot was blown up, down, and all over the carpet. Since rules were broken (by others), 4 people were terminated at a place that (almost) NEVER fires anyone. Higher ups were looking to place my head on the mantle as the final trophy, and with that I faced my Dean who questioned me concerning the nature of our relationship. She's a bright woman, and although she believed me when I said nothing romantic happened, she also understood that I did actually have feelings for this coed. I should note that Anya is 26, not 18 and fresh out of high school. I was blindsided with this Holy Thursday, and there was no one I could speak to, with no other managers on campus for the rest of the week. Needless to say, I was a wreck. I was so convinced I would be fired, I spent the weekend clearing my veteran benefit problems so the next person to hold my position wouldn't need to clean my mess. I spent all of Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday researching attendance and de-certifying those who did not perform. The total was 14 hours with 6 on Saturday and the rest on Sunday. I was lucky I even made it to Easter dinner.
Violating Catholic protocol aside, this probably turned out to be the smartest move I made for the year. You couldn't have told me that at the time, of course, and was seriously considering an honorable suicide rather than living with the failure of losing a job others would kill to have. I went as far as to have a plan (pitching myself off the Bear Mountain Bridge or possibly the Tappan Zee) and I wrote a note to act as a will, ask my family to forgive me, and not hunt and murder Anya, This would have been a hard sell, since they hated her before all this went down anyway. I didn't share this plan with many people, as loose lips sink ships, and also get nice financial aid counselors locked in psych wards while heavily medicated. I was having none of that, though I did let a few people know what was happening, but only in a general sense. My program friends were in shock and worried for my safety. My colleagues worried about my career, and with good reason. Assuming I did not commit hari-kari, I'd still be dead as far as my profession is concerned. You don't come back from sexual misconduct, period, and rightfully so. I did let a couple of people know just how far I'd fallen, and what I intended to do about it. These were people with similar histories who would both understand and not panic.
Once the weekend passed, I began to mount a counter offensive. I spoke to both my bosses and the union. With that the defense began to gel, and I started to feel slightly less crazed, though no less worried. The upshot was as follows: if I had slept with her, I most likely would be fired; at minimum, the college would seriously move against me. As an international student, I had no financial aid to give her, but the appearance of impropriety might have been enough. Of course, no sexual congress had convened. International status or no, you do not sleep with students.
Either way, I did develop an emergency plan in case I lost my job. A friend had taken an ESL teaching certification program in NYC, and although she was hardly enamored with the job itself, she did give the program an enthusiastic endorsement. That simple tidbit of knowledge was enough to sooth my rattled nerves. Part of my panic and depression was the understanding that I have no real skills save financial aid. This is strange for a guy who primarily worked in restaurants, but that was long ago. I'm not really qualified to do, well, anything else. I would have to go back to school in some way, and that depressed me to no end. The ESL course was short, affordable, and highly regarded. I could get a job, and even teach outside the USA to both decompress and save money. A little adventure wouldn't have hurt either. Only months later did I told her how much this helped me. She may very well have saved my sanity and life.
Weeks and months passed with meetings, firings, and investigations. The emails were both my albatross and my saving grace. They did confirm I was spending far more time with her that the college would otherwise like, but they also backed up my protestation that I was never intimate with Anya. Eventually it came down to a small book loan program available to those not getting aid. They were trying to use this to have some black mark against my employment record.
Essentially, (and I'm editorializing here) while I did nothing wrong, per se; I was also unwise in my enmeshment and the college did not want to create a precedent saying what I did was acceptable. They wanted to have some sort of penalty to demonstrate their disapproval of my actions. It never happened, though I was never officially cleared either. As the weeks passed and my termination became less likely, I burned my suicide note with the friends who knew all that was going through my mind. Easter was in early April lst year, and my anniversary date at the college is October 1st. This date comes with a raise, although it is not automatic. I can be denied, but only with cause.
Obviously, I just wrote 8 paragraphs of "cause," and I knew that even if things were never officially resolved, if I got the raise I was in the clear. Until then, a black cloud would follow me. On October 3rd it was gone, hopefully to never return.
Epilogue: I never blamed Anya for what happened to me, although she is fully culpable for what happened to the married man. She was a willing participant, and so was I. We're still friends, but spending time with her is too painful these days. This is not because of the job, but being with someone you truly like when she doesn't feel the same way really sucks. I did tell her that if I was fired I would have married her immediately to protect her from my family, among other reasons. However, I still wouldn't have gotten any. So, as an bookend to my self-inflicted tale of woe, why was it so beneficial to work that weekend? Well, I did get the hours as overtime, and 2 days later the VA office in Albany called to arrange an audit. I laughed out loud and invited him for a visit. I was never so happy to be inspected in my entire life. I passed with a perfect score, and no matter what happened, I was very happy to have my efforts validated that afternoon. I honestly needed it; things were really touch and go.
