I woke up this morning to a call by the Taylor's Law Office, asking me if I had checked my Reading student mail. That got me curious and out of my bed right away.
Not long afterwards, I found out that Dear Miss Simone has been bullshitting us (us meaning all transferring students) all along. We were informed that offer letters were sent to us last Tuesday. Therefore, we were expecting it yesterday. But the offer letter never arrived. In truth, the offer letters were only sent to the International Office in Reading on Wednesday (UK time) and sent out by the International Office on Thursday (UK time). In short, we will only receive our offer letters by next Monday instead of the expected Thursday or Friday of this week.
Wow. Not only are they stupid, slow, inefficient and incompetent, they are dishonest as well. Don't you just love them?
Moving on, I checked my student mail and apparently, received three emails from Dear Miss Simone. I shall post up only two of the mails which she sent me because the third one is plain useless. I tell ya, the two emails are bullshit. Reading it made me want to laugh because how obvious can she make the bullshit be? Even the first sentence is bullshit already. And she is part of the Law Faculty... My, my.
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:02:58 +0100
Dear Samantha,
To address the question that you posed, as follows:
" ...when will the results be out? I have been checking RISIS everyday for the past week and results are still not out yet, despite the fact that I sat for my re-sit exam on the 28th of August; that is almost two weeks ago! If you do not mind me asking, may I please know why is it taking so long?"
The papers are marked by Taylor's University College staff and they have to be allowed time to do this in the proper way (I am sure that you would not want them to rush this, and not give your paper due care and attention), the papers are then sent to Reading, where they are moderated, once again this process is carefully conducted to give full consideration to each paper. The marks are then collated by the administrative teams (this is no easy task when you consider, as you clearly have not, that you are not the only student sitting for a re-sit examination at this time of year), the marks are then presented to a series of meetings within the School and at Faculty level. Each committee is comprised of different members and sits on different days. The marks then come back to the departments for entry onto RISIS and these are then processed by the RISIS team before they are released on the 18th September to students. I hope that you now understand that we are all working extremely hard at this time of year, and if we could get the results to you any more quickly we would. As it is arrangements are made to ensure that Taylor's students receive their offer/visa letters as soon as possible. If you had alerted the University to the issue with RISIS (which you have still not clearly explained to me, looking at the account I see no difficulty with changing the information contained therein), then you would not be facing these concerns about your offer/visa letter. This programme has been in operation for four years and we have not yet had a student who has failed to arrive as a result of visa difficulties. I hope that you will learn from this experience that careful preparation on your part (keeping records up-to-date, and reading and acting upon information from staff) will ensure smoother operation of processes. I have arranged for your transfer letter, if you have been successful in your recent re-sit examination, to be sent to Taylor's.
Ms. S Austin-Jones
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:26:45 +0100
Dear All,
I would like to confirm that the offer/visa letters, for those students who have been successful in the recent re-sit examinations, have been sent. I would expect that these letters will arrive tomorrow or Saturday. As has been stated on many occasions, the letters have been dispatched to your home address, as shown in RISIS (it is your responsibility to keep this information up-to-date), unless you have been informed that alternative arrangements have been made.
I would like to remind you , in the strongest terms, that all communications about this matter should be addressed to me. If contact is made by students to numerous other departments, and staff, within the university, this can, in fact, slow the process down, as well as undermining good relations between staff and students. I therefore appreciate your co-operation in this matter. (The most accurate and up-to-date information is available from the School of Law – information obtained from elsewhere may NOT be accurate and may NOT reflect your current position - particularly in relation to examination results, and consequently offer letters, where things may not be finally concluded).
I look forward to meeting you on September 29th.
Simone Austin-Jones
Now, its time for Spot The Bullshit! Let's start with the first sentence of the first mail, shall we?
"The papers are marked by Taylor's University College staff and they have to be allowed time to do this in the proper way..." Riiiggghhhttt. From the first day students stepped foot into Taylor's Law School under the Reading programme, we were being impressed and told over and over again that only First Year papers are marked by Taylor's staff. Second year papers are sent to Reading to be marked and Taylor's have got no business with it. Conclusion: bullshit confirmed.
"...we are all working extremely hard..." Oh, really? Mr G called up Reading a few days prior and asked to speak to Dear Miss Simone, whom the staff at Reading couldn't locate. Clearly, she was missing in action during office hours. So, Mr G was referred to Simone's colleague. He merely asked her to check whether his name was on the list of students who passed, to which her reply was "I'm sorry but we can't help you. Why don't you call back 6 hours later?" Oh, yes. I can see how hardworking you Brits are. Indeed. Conclusion: bullshit confirmed.
After that, Mr G received an email from Dear Miss Simone herself; blasting him for going through her colleagues instead of liaising directly with her obese self. Apparently, the matter was between Mr G and herself. There was no need to get her colleagues involved. Oooh, touchy, touchy. Why so touchy, Miss Simone? Someone scrutinising your back for incompetence? But I thought that u were working extremely hard...
Next suspected bullshit is "...the issue with RISIS...looking at the account I see no difficulty with changing the information contained therein..." Dear Miss Simone, are you really sure you looked properly?
This appeared when I logged into RISIS 
On a closer look
As you can all clearly see, my personal particulars were missing and so were my course module and past examinations marks. How on earth was I supposed to change my home address? Log out? Conclusion: bullshit confirmed.
"This programme has been in operation for four years and we have not yet had a student who has failed to arrive as a result of visa difficulties." Dear Miss Simone, "not yet" doesn't guarantee that in the future, it would not happen. You see, all this while, the second cohort of the First Year Students were not allowed to re-sit, unlike the first cohort. So, if they failed, its bye bye. But this year, Reading changed the system to allow second cohort students to re-sit, which explained why the re-sit date was pushed 'til so late. Don't talk so soon, Miss Simone. You may have to eat your own words, though for my own sake, I pray that its not this year. Conclusion: bullshit inconclusive; however sentence contained alarming element of bullshit.
"I hope that you will learn from this experience..." Yes, I have. Brits are incompetent and dishonest. And anyone who wants to read law should just screw Reading and enrol in Sheffield or Oxford or other better universities. Conclusion: no bullshit.
Now, lets have a look at the second mail. Oh, this is getting fun.
"I would like to remind you , in the strongest terms, that all communications about this matter should be addressed to me. If contact is made by students to numerous other departments, and staff, within the university, this can...undermine[ing] good relations between staff and students." Why so affected by students liaising with your colleagues who are in the same department as you? Muahahahahaha.
There. A year's supply of bullshit from the fat lady herself. What's a small town girl from Sabah like me to do? Send her the sweetest thank you note ever. ;)
Dear Miss Simone,
I thank you so much for all that you have done to help us transferring students, with regard to our results and offer letters. I understand that everyone has been working extremely hard to enable transferring students to rush things in time. Your effort in the matter has helped us a lot and I really appreciate it.
I would like to apologise if you were offended or annoyed in any way by my previous mails, and I deeply regret any inconvenience caused. Once more, please accept my highest gratitude because what you have done was a great help.
Thank you very much.
Yours sincerely,
Samantha Ho.
Yep. Thank you for giving me so much bullshit. I trust that my garden will produce prize cabbages and sunflowers. And all the earthworms will be wriggling around joyfully because there is so much shit.
Thank you, thank you very much.
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