Victor Obaseki Staff Writer [Click to enlarge]

Senior Victor Obaseki discusses his recent encounter with Student Accounting and why the staff there could use some customer service training.

I just wanted to get back a bit of my cash, but it turned into a customer service hassle -- my first in nearly two years at NT.

I had paid off my tuition in March, and the cashier told me $36 was left over.

I was ecstatic. Being a poor college student, $36 dollars can provide an essential gas tank, weekend spending money or, most importantly, a few imperative meals.

I was contemplating how I was going to eat dinner and put gas in my car.

I was virtually broke, as I often am, and the $2 and change that I gathered from my car and bookbag was not going to suffice.

"My check isn't in until the beginning of the month," I thought as the clock ticked and I grew more desperate. I had a mini-epiphany: my student account still contained the $36! I quickly called Student Accounting.

Upon an employee's answer, I explained the situation, but she said I couldn't get my money because it had been credited toward my summer school payment.

This, I calmly explained, was unacceptable because I had authorized no such payment and summer tuition wasn't due until May 2.

I had to reword the same explanation a couple of times in order to spur the employee to check the policy with someone -- fully expecting to have her return to the phone and tell me a check would be ready upon my arrival.

But again I was dismayed when some 10 minutes later she came back to the phone and said the exact same thing she repeatedly said before she put me on hold: "We can't do it because it's already been credited to your account."

I asked for a supervisor, hoping I could get him or her to circumvent the system.

A moment later, a supervisor got on the phone and explained to me in what seemed like an inadvertently belittling way that my $36 was nominal compared to the hundreds she usually refunds.

At this point, it had been about 35 to 40 minutes on the phone, but I was still not really upset.

I sternly made and reinforced the exact same argument I had been making for 40 minutes before the supervisor said in a fairly belligerent fashion, "Well, if you come to the office we will give you a check!"

I was flabbergasted. I had just argued for some 40 minutes why I thought I should get my money back, and she finally decided to let me know it could have been done just like that -- with a good bit of rudeness, to boot!

Dr. Norval Pohl, NT president, told me last month that with state budget cuts coming, students could plausibly be, "Paying more for less."

That is, our tuition and fees could go up, meanwhile services could go down.

Student Accounting employees should expect that students will be even more up tight about money in the fall and the only cure to such irritability is surely good, cordial customer service.

I will be gone, but I hope for the sake of NT students that the entire Student Accounting staff takes some intense customer service courses with NT's human resources department.

Victor Obaseki is a Denton Senior. He can be reached at voo6@hotmail.com.

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