"Office Hours"

Office hours. Meet me during my office hours. She said this with a smile when I tentatively asked her if she would be willing to take time out of her busy “professor” schedule to write me a letter of recommendation. I only needed one more letter. A simple letter. A letter stating that I was a worthy contender for a competitive program. Clearly she had pages to write about what a brilliant student I had been in all four of her courses, and a simple letter would be an easy feat. The University at Albany letterhead would sing praises of my intellectual mind and the insight I had brought as a vital member of her classes over the last two years. I jauntily walked down the long corridor to her office, anticipating the compliments she would surely dole out as she gathered her final information for the letter. A simple letter. The last one I needed.

I arrived during Office Hours. The room looked like it needed a lamp. Shadows were cast on her face as she looked over my resume and file. I couldn’t help thinking that the chair should be placed away from the window because the frosty metal arms were giving my arms goose bumps. I glanced up at her collection of novels, counting how many I had already conquered. She kept clearing her throat and making odd, “Mmm hmm” noises from across the table as she scribbled illegible red scratches on a yellow notepad. My foot was involuntarily tapping and my confidence was freezing over like the frost crystalizing on the window. Was there something wrong with my file? Did I make a grammatical error on my resume? Surely after voluntarily taking four of her courses, I have provided her with all the information she needs.

Finally, she spoke. The room seemed to be squeezing in around me and her words hung from the invisible clothesline in the air. What followed was a stream of negativity that boiled my goose bumps away and enraged my insides. She spoke in bitter fragments as she fervently scribbled more red scratches on the yellow pad.

Lansingburgh High School. I wasn’t aware you graduated from Lansingburgh High School. In Troy? And you’re working? While in college? So your parents can’t afford to send you? Oh, they aren’t married any longer. I see. So you must not have grown up in a stable home? Mmm hmm, I see now. I just wish I had known. Before I agreed to write the letter, I mean…

The following insulting dribbles of commentary became inaudible as I turned my hearing switch off and refused to listen. My professor, whom I had spent much of the last two years idolizing and admiring during our classes, had managed to insult all of that which made me me. I can’t recall how our conversation ended. I floated from my icy chair, walked down the dark corridor, and fled to the parking lot and to the safety of my 1989 Honda Accord. The one I had purchased with my own hard earned money because, yes, I was working while in college and because, no, my parents could not afford to buy me a car.

I remember flaming anger liquefying into salty sadness streaming down my face. From a piece of colored resume paper, that I had constructed to demonstrate my most admirable attributes, this professor had devised assumptions that were unreasonable and out-of-line. She had insulted all the qualities of which I had become the most proud. Her violent words had sliced slivers of my confidence away and I rested my spinning head on the steering wheel as I tried to make sense of her daggered words.

I left the parking lot that day realizing an unfriendly truth. People can be unkind. Sometimes, the people for whom you have the most admiration will let you down. Instinctually, I had thoughts of hatred streaming through my head, but I realized that this was only one person. One person. One person who assumed I possessed certain qualities based on her own personal bias. One person. One person who clearly did not know me, and would now have the unfortunate disadvantage of knowing me no longer. Her words stung, but her unknowing lesson stuck.