The flyer exhorts “Save Mella!” (This is a fictitious name, of course, so don't bother Googling it.) The writer goes on to claim that Mella doesn't deserve to be terminated and should be allowed to keep her job. I yucked it up with Denny—how sweet, the students think they have some power!— and thought it was over, just another bizarre blip in the ongoing implosion of one dinky career college.
Last night, however, my three Word students were talking in those hushed tones that indicate something is up.
“I know who did it,” said Minnie, a round-faced girl who used to be a Medical Assisting student and now is... I have no idea what she is. I just know she's been around for what seems like forever.
I said nothing, not knowing at first what she was talking about and not wanting to get involved, like a true introvert. Minnie's friend (I'll call her Axella) took out her earplugs to ask who.
“The two people who did it are denying it, and two other people have been accused of doing it, and now have a write-up in their permanent record from Mr. Freeper,” said Minnie, milking her moment.
I did my best to ignore her, although I was starting to suspect this had something to do with that flyer.
The third student (I'll call her Lela) waited until Minnie and Axella left for their next class, and then she said to me, “I saw Mella making those copies last night.”
“No way,” I said skeptically.
“I saw her.”
I let it drop and went to my next class. But I thought, wow, Mella, right on, sister. I didn't think you wanted this job anymore, but I support you, whatever radical subversive action you might take. Bring on the spray paint! I'm right behind you!
Later I saw Mella in the office.
“I heard...” I began and told her the whole story. Mella listened. After a few moments, I trailed off when I noticed she was looking at me like I'd grown a second head. She seemed to be trying to generate interest in responding to my unspoken accusation. I thought to myself, She doesn't care. She's already gone.
She didn't say it, but I don't think she would want her job back, even if management came to her on their hypocritical knees and begged her to stay. She's seen the dirty red underbelly of the place. Of all the layoffs, I would say hers is the most cruel. She re-arranged her life for this school. She donated tons of extra time, not to mention her heart, to the students and to the faculty. You couldn't have asked for a more committed and loyal employee. Management took what she gave them and when they were done with her, they discarded her like an used tissue.
“I was making copies last night,” Mella finally said. “But it wasn't those flyers. I saw a copy of one, though, and thought, ok, so what.”
I don't know if this incident is evidence of the greedy nature of for-profit career education or if it is simply evidence of a failing institution run by self-centered, short-sighted, abusive individuals. Maybe the two are related. Maybe you can't have one without the other, I don't know. I just know it's sad that a good employee has been callously discarded. It's sad that the only way students can grieve the loss of their campus and their favorite teacher is by posting flyers exhorting the school's invisible and uncaring management to save Mella's job, as if their futile expression represented anything than more than an embarrassing annoyance. Instead of giving students a place and time to grieve, our management did what management does when backed into a corner: threaten, punish, and terminate.
We are so out of here.
