playing hookey

Today at work, I answered the phone, and it was recording from the local high school. The sweet voice on the line told me that my student, Juan, had been absent from at least 2 periods that day. If I wanted to clear the absences, I needed to press 0 after the beep. If I had questions, I could call the attendance office.

A nice little system they have there. But if you were a teenager and you knew about this, what would you do?

If I had skipped class, and I didn’t want my parents to know, then I would make sure I answered the phone that whole night, in order to press zero at the appropriate time.

I don’t know. Maybe they have some backup system in place. Perhaps after you press zero, you are then transferred to a voice recognition program or something. But probably not. If schools could afford that, then what a waste of tax dollars.

And if you were wondering, Juan (or Junior) is my boss’ son, and he was sick today, not just skipping class. so I just passed the phone off to Carlos, so I don’t know what happens after you press zero.

And yes, this boring post is the first of the new year. I’m sure there will be many more to come.