Dear god, WHY can you not spell Ph.D.?

[ThinMick]

This one's not a single incident, but a commonly repeated piece of suck that I had to deal with when I worked at a university, in the office that handled the graduation ceremony. We had a simple form on our website that the graduate was supposed to fill out so we could arrange seating plans and ensure that we really had hired enough chairs, escorts, and nametags to make things go smoothly.

Someone would call, at least once a week, demanding to know why they hadn't gotten their information packet (because you can't spell Albuquerque?), why their degree was spelled wrong on the reply form in the packet, why *I* spelled their name wrong, or any number of other misspellings that could only have originated from one source: the web form. One year, I was privy to twelve misspellings of Ph.D., not the least of which was the bloke who was getting a degree in Elementary Education, and filled in "pDo". I wish I was joking. I really do.

Now, this is also important for more reasons than people getting their packets and their names spelled right. We had to tally the number of graduates by degree. This meant that if someone spelled their degree type improperly, they wouldn't get counted by the auto-tallying part of the software. Eventually, I fixed this problem by removing most of the text entry fields (degree type, college, department, choice of ceremony...)and replacing them with dropdown boxes (and rewriting the spaghetti-code backend done by my predecessor).

But, lo, we still had guys like "John", who called to complain that we spelled his name "Jone".

Sometimes it wakes me up at night to know that there are people that dumb who graduated from college with advanced degrees.

[karma_gypsy]

You know it's probably just a lost cause, but isn't there some sort of disclaimer on the site . . . like "please double check and make sure all entries are spelled correctly" . . .? Although, I know, alotta people would simply overlook it, but that way it's more of their oops. Plus you do get the very few that will double check their forms and make the corrections when needed . . .

[Jester]

I've told this before, but it is appropos here.

As a magician, I have a trick that involves the spectator selecting any card they want from the deck and signing the face of the card. They then put the signed card back in the deck, and it is lost in the shuffle. At this point, I talk a lot of crap (it is what I do well), find the wrong card, and they laugh. At which point...the signed card comes out of my mouth. Which usually results in their reacting like this:



One time, I was in a bar, performing for a couple of young ladies there. One of them was a lovely young lady with a common name with an uncommon spelling. I performed the trick, she signed the card, yada yada yada, her card comes out of my mouth. At which point she says in absolute awe and surprise:

"My name's even spelled right!"

At which point her friend and I just LOOK at her. And then her friend says, "Um, you signed the card, genius!"

One of the three stupidest things I have heard while doing magic. And that is saying something.

[repsac]

How in Christ's name do you misspell your own name and STILL have a degree from a University?

There should be some unwritten law that if your spelling is that bad, no matter HOW old you are, you would have to repeat kindergarten again.

[ThinMick]

My sentiments exactly. I mean, I can understand a really easy typo, if you're in a hurry -- like "Jihn" for "John" -- but how much of a hurry should a person be in while filling out their application for a graduation ceremony!

[rdp78]

I have an idea on this one.

It all has to do with the lack of common sense and this is from experience because one of my former coinkers has a doctorate (which he worked on when I was there) but yet he was one of dumbest people I probably know. Ah, he was one of the reasons why I quit that job and the funny thing is he thought he was some freaking genius (yeah, right). He would like ask me to do something could do himself (I think more of him being lazy) and I don't know what else becuase oh tried to get that out of my mind.

I do have this theory is that people think they become smart after taking a class and so they think if they take classes possibly even getting a degree showing they have taken classes then they will become smarter. Then they decided to get a higher degree taking more complex classes and so they think they are very smart. Well, guess with all that learning about stuff most of us would think would be useless I think they forget the basic stuff they learn when they were kids and also some common sense too.

[friendofjimmyk]

My sentiments exactly. I mean, I can understand a really easy typo, if you're in a hurry -- like "Jihn" for "John" -- but how much of a hurry should a person be in while filling out their application for a graduation ceremony!

That's what I'm saying! Here you are, you have graduated from college. You put your blood, sweat and tears into a degree...I would think that you would be damn sure that your name is spelled right and the degree information is correct...after all, this is your degree!

[aqutalion]

Someone would call, at least once a week, demanding to know why they hadn't gotten their information packet (because you can't spell Albuquerque?), why their degree was spelled wrong on the reply form in the packet, why *I* spelled their name wrong, or any number of other misspellings that could only have originated from one source: the web form. One year, I was privy to twelve misspellings of Ph.D., not the least of which was the bloke who was getting a degree in Elementary Education, and filled in "pDo". I wish I was joking. I really do.

Are you sure he meant Ph.D? It could have been an abbreviation for "post-doctorate". From what I hear, it's not unheard of for many people in the education field to do post-doc work.

[AFpheonix]

If he was doing post-doc, why would he be filling out paperwork for graduation? He already has done so.

[South Texan]

One day while I was in my last semester of grad school, one of my friends stopped me in the hall and asked if I had remembered that this was the last day to order my graduation genitalia. (The term should have been "regalia" as had been printed on all the reminder letters.) I asked her to repeat herself, and she again informed me that this was the last day to rent my genitalia, so I needed to hoof it over to the bookstore to make my deposit.

I smiled and told her that I had owned my own for some time now and did not need to order another set. Then she asked me if the hood was purple (the color for our degree).

I did not answer that one. Actually, I was by then laughing too hard even to have tried.

[ThinMick]

Are you sure he meant Ph.D? It could have been an abbreviation for "post-doctorate". From what I hear, it's not unheard of for many people in the education field to do post-doc work.

I'm quite sure. I noticed it when he called me up and yelled about it, saying that someone in his family noticed it was misspelled in his packet. Someone. In. His. Family. As in, he didn't notice.

[repsac]

I feel rather bad saying this, but I must admit that I know a gentleman that could easily be guilty of mispelling Ph.D or however it's spelled. I remembered this after writing my post, but one of my professors in college would routinely stop, check his spelling and then ask the class how to spell certain words. He'd then correct the spelling on the board.

This same professor, counted with his fingers when doing simple math.

[Pagan]

Do not even get me started on university profs! Particularly the Biology Dept at NMSU. The problem with most of them is that they are extremely knowledgeable, but only about one narrow subject. They have no common sense whatsoever! I worked in the Biology Dept (College of Arts & Sciences) main office for about 3 years when I was in college. Two of the profs stood in front of me having a discussion about how the students in the College of Ag and Home Ec were not very smart. Well, I was in the Ag College (Fashion Merchandising, well, I was in A & S, too. I was a double-major, which was a monster in itself!) and had just made the Dean's List (you need a 3.5 GPA or higher). They knew both of these things! Urgh! I didn't say anything then, I was too young. If it was now....let's just say they'd be walking funny!

Off topic - ThinMick, are you ready for the Balloon Fiesta?!! I live on the West Side and work kind of in the Northeast Heights. So I gotta take a completely different way to work, can't get up Alameda.

[skeptic53]

Pre-hack I posted a story about working at U. of Oregon in the Office of Academic Advising and Student Services. An older student showed up who had moved to Eugene from back east. He came in wanting to major in Ecology, and was furious when I told him UO didn't offer that major. He had bought a house in Eugene, and was going to sue the University for deceiving him. I pulled out his file and showed him the receipt for the course catalog he had been mailed, which listed all majors and courses. And I showed him his application, where in the box marked "Intended Major", he had put "Biology", which UO *did* offer.

Lucky for him OSU in Corvallis offered Ecology, and the distance between the towns was a do-able commute. If he had done something this dumb in Washington, he would have been seriously screwed, as UW is in Seattle and WSU in Pullman, in the far southeast corner of the state, hundreds of miles apart.

[ThinMick]

Off topic - ThinMick, are you ready for the Balloon Fiesta?!! I live on the West Side and work kind of in the Northeast Heights. So I gotta take a completely different way to work, can't get up Alameda.

Oh, jeez. Alameda's gone bad already? I'm lucky enough to live down by the uni, so the only thing I have to worry about is balloons landing in front of the library and sucky tourists in line in front of me at the Frontier. Apparently white men from Ohio can't hold their chile...