This one's for the 25%.

Mid-terms are happening at Mizzou right now and that has led to an upswing in the  number of students roaming through the Society trying to quickly finish assignments that they've known about for over a month and that are due in, oh, fifteen minutes (Not kidding. That happened today.). I am definitely a procrastinator when it comes to schoolwork. I can relate to the students who are trying to get something done that they've put off for a while. But there is a limit. Fifteen minutes is hardly even enough time to walk from one end of MU's campus to the other, let alone enough time to start and finish a midterm project that you were supposed to be working on for weeks now. It's hard to not laugh in these students' faces sometimes. I've been trying to keep as neutral a face as possible when hearing them talk about what they need to look at, explain how they have only an hour to do their research, get an attitude when they find out that all four thousand+ manuscript collections aren't housed on site for their immediate perusal, and whine about the cost of copies. My tolerance for fools has never been high. I'd say 75% of the students that come in are fully competent human beings that seem to function well-enough out in the world and, even when they are running short on time, they still 'get it' where we're concerned. They understand that we're not a library and we have different policies that require protection of 'old stuff' and they act accordingly. It's that other 25% who seem to have some sort of....damage. No matter how many times you might try to explain things to them and no matter how many different ways you try to explain things to them, it never sinks in. They aren't much younger than me and it hasn't been long enough that I've been out of school for me to take pity on students and think 'Oh, they just don't know how to do this. They're young. I'll cut them some slack.' I'm more of the mind to look at them incredulously and tell them, 'Get your shit together, fool. Enough of your classmates have been in here in the past two weeks that we actually know what your assignment is and that it's due today. Don't blame it on your professor when you just suck at college. No, that spiel that my co-worker gave you about how you can't bring your purse or backpack in here wasn't a joke. For the twelfth time, you can only use pencils in this room, no pens. Yes, you do actually have to fill out that form because this is a bureaucratic organization and we love our color-coded forms, so go ahead and write your lil old name on that line; we don't want to leave you out of the fun. And, no, you can't student charge your copies so your parents can pay for them next month when the bill arrives; it's twenty-five cents per page now. Cash, check, or Credit card, chump?'

And yeah, congrats on doing primary-source research. You're a true scholar, now. I'm sure you're going to blow your professor away with the superbly awesome, well-cited research paper you're going to spout off in the next ten minutes using the manuscript source citation that you...left here on the table.

*facepalm*

God bless the teachers and professors that have actually chosen deal with these people every day. Or maybe they chose it for the 75% and just try to deal with the others as best they can? Either way, their tolerance and patience amaze me.