Curiouser and Curiouser! on incompetence

You think it's over? I'm only just begun...

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:15:06 +0100

For students who may think that their Higher Education establishment is shockingly unprofessional in how it deals with it's customers (i.e. me) the following information is provided:

Go through internal procedures
Complain to the Vice Chancellor (even if he's the root of the problems)
Complain to the board of governors (who oversee everything so carefully)
Complain to the NUS (although they will refer you to your local union who may be completely spineless)
Complain to the Quality Assurance Agency (although they may only be interested in purely academic quality issues not general incompetence)
Complain to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (feels like the last chance saloon to me!)
Don't bother with the funding council cos they're not interested

I forgot to tell you why!

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:39:19 +0100

For people considering studying at London Metropolitan University my advice would be to think twice and find out if there isn't another London institution which will offer you a better experience.

Here's an example of what you can expect from the people running LondonMet:

You'll do your course and have endless complaints through the year about how it and the university is run, but figure "it can't get any worse, just deal with it"
You'll take examinations on the 16th and 26th of May 2005.
Some 3 months later, say 15th August, you'll have one provisional result and one exam where you still don't have the result at all!
Then you'll discover the resit for this exam has been scheduled for 24th August.
But it won't be the university that will tell you this.
They won't tell you anything else either
If you ask if this is how a ~~university~~business should be run you'll be ignored (or worse)
But they'll still put their hand out for your money.

I've started my course and have 2 years left. There are no places left, on equivalent courses, available at other London institutions this year so if I choose not to re-enroll I will be skipping a year to make a point about not giving these people my money. That's a decision I have to make.

I'd advise others to think about whether they want to spend their money to attend an institution that will give you these sorts of opportunities.

Say no to funding tax parasites

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 15:08:30 +0100

I was reflecting today on how London Metropolitan University is run. Anyone who has spent much time there knows that it is run by and for the benefit of University management. Staff come a poor second and students (if at all) a distant third.

As an example of the level of incompetence you will find at London Metropolitan consider that today I still don't have confirmed results for either of the modules I sat exams for in May of this year! And we're already a week past the date of resits!

I was told, when I asked, that I should take a day off work to make myself available for a resit if I thought I might have to take one. Pardon me? Besides my fury at getting such a glib response I thought one of the few things you could reasonably expect your University to do was grade you and tell you if you passed or failed. Clearly my mistake.

You don't have to hang around long to get a feel for the shocking disregard in which students are held. Reading the following just brought it sharply into focus for me:

The public sector succeeds at what its real aim is, which is to live off the bounty produced by those outside the public sector. The growth of the public sector in the U.S. and other countries shows just how successful tax parasites can be. Having worked for a public university that is somewhere between 25 and 50 percent funded by the State of New York, I can vouch for the parallel between working for the U.S. post office and working for a university. Those of you who have attended universities will have encountered the unresponsiveness of the professors to the students. Unfortunately, nearly all private universities also dip liberally into the public treasury via subsidies for research distributed by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. [ Privatize the Levees and the Public Sector -- Michael S. Rozeff ]

I think public funding of Universities should end because it breeds institutions with no regard for their raison d'etre. As a first step I think we should give the money to students and let them pay the University, or not, as they see fit. If they don't spend it on a degree then maybe they'll use it to start a business or do something else worthwhile.

I for one will enjoy watching as a lot of bad universities go to the wall. Good riddance to them and those who mismanage them for their own ends.

Onetel, no doorstep

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 17:01:40 +0100

In the last 24hrs I've had two individuals from Onetel come to my door. The one who turned up last night (some time past 6.30) was downright rude and I had to shut the door on him. The other, just now, well i'm not sure what it was but I found his manner off-putting. I also didn't like the way he seemed to be trying to gather information (although I admit that I am probably over-sensitive to this kind of thing). Based upon their doorstep technique there is no way I'd do business with this company.

Ludicrous

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:22:28 +0100

So according to one of the online ADSL guides my local BT exchange has been upgraded to Max DSL and should be able to cope with 1.5mbps instead of the 1mbps I get now (even if I already had 4mbps from TeleWest some time ago.. whoo). So I called my ISP Nildram (recommended) and asked about getting Max DSL speeds.

The guy I spoke to said that his system (I didn't ask what it was) didn't show my exchange as being upgraded but that he could put the regrading request through anyway. Before he did that I asked him whether there was any risk that the regrading might leave me with a lower speed.

In fact he said there was. His system showed that BT thinks my line is 512Kbps (even if it has been working perfectly at 1mbps for 3+ months) so it was quite possible that I would end up being downgraded to 512Kbps and stuck there. WTF?

He explained that this was the thrust of BT's Max DSL terms & conditions and, if they do this, there is no way to get back to my original speed of 1mbps. He mentioned that this had happened to another customer in a similar position. That customer had even tried switching ISP afterwards but it had done him no good, he was stuck at 512Kbps until BT said otherwise.

What kind of a shitty system is this when a customer can ask for an upgrade and stand a good chance of getting their service cut in half? Why are BT so utterly useless? And being this useless how is it that they still call the shots?

Ludicrous!

Backfired

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:44:07 +0100

That's hardly surprising. How many times have we seen the US establishment back something to the hilt only to discover that the plot backfires by inspiring opposition? This is one of many problems of the US government. Its crackdowns usually end up working as advertisements (think of drugs, for example). All throughout Latin America, we've seen this happen with politics: US support is often the kiss of death. Especially in a country like Somalia, with so many factions, US backing is something to hide because it can only fire up the opposition. -- Via Lew Rockwell

This is a reference to the rise of Islamic militia in Somalia despite (and quite possibly because of) the CIA throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars of US tax payers money at secular warlords in aother bungled attempt to influence politics in that country.

Really the CIA seem quite hopeless at this stuff, you'd think with the all the practice they've had meddling in other countries they might show some skill at it by now.

Of course at this rate I don't think the $10bn that the Department for Homeland Security(sic) is currently wasting will be enough. I think more lobbyists are called for!