There is an ad campaign on the buses I catch and the moment (probably elsewhere too) for Bank of Queensland which promotes their service based on the dedication of their staff to solving customers' financial issues quickly. One such, over two posters, quotes a bank manager saying 'Finance for their first home FELL THROUGH' followed by another adjacent poster saying 'I worked overnight to get approval in 24 hours'. Another tells of a bank staff member staying back over a half-day public holiday to get the approval sorted out for some guy to put a deposit on a ute.
Does anyone else see something wrong with this? I am all for working conscientiously and helping people, but at what point do work hours stop and rest hours begin? Why has it become necessary for people to demand 24 hour approval for something they will spend most of the rest of their life paying off?
Because of the nature of competition, now that this bank has made this commitment to working in their own time, it's likely that the others will follow suit. And then what is to stop consumers demanding businesses in all the other industries from doing the same?
The academy is not immune from this mentality of 24-hour availability. Many students who send emails to teachers out of office hours are disappointed and sometimes openly critical if they do not receive an immediate response - especially if it's a weekend and the assignment is due on Monday! Apparently it is no longer the responsibility of the student to ensure they ask their questions well in advance of the due date. You can almost feel the frustration in online discussion board posts where a question is posed out of hours and is met with silence (at least from faculty).
To a certain extent, many of these teaching and learning technologies have been developed precisely to enable students greater access to learning resources, including the community of scholarship, and especially where students would otherwise be isolated from such contact by geography or life circumstances. But people's need for rest each week needs to be acknowledged, respected, and, even better, reintroduced as a valid idea.
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Completely agree that we're turning workaholic and it's not a good way to go.
ReplyDeleteBut it always made me angry when I was at uni that students were expected to work 24/7 but staff weren't. I agree that things shouldn't be left 'til Sunday night before an assignment is handed in, but if I'm expected to be working full weekends then I think it's only fair I'm provided with assistance on said weekends.
Are students expected to work 24/7? Who says that? Or is it the way the system works (providing online learning resources etc) that suggests it? If it's true that students are expected to work 24/7 then yes, that's an unfair expectation. I know from my own student experience that the reality is that you will be doing assignments etc on the weekend because you have classes during the week (although not many, in the case of an Arts degree at Club Mac!) and you also have to work to earn money to be able to live. Being a student is hard work, I know.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't know my Japanese teacher...
ReplyDeleteah, I see. Well yes, perhaps I would then qualify my remarks by suggesting that if a teacher is going to expect their students to work on the weekends, then they should be prepared to be available to answer questions etc.
ReplyDelete