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Always mistaken for a student December 7, 2012

Posted by mareserinitatis in education, work.
Tags: , , ,
3 comments

A week or two ago, I commented that I get mistaken for a student a lot.  There’s another way this happens, and it has nothing to do with my appearance.  It has to do with the fact that my work email ends with .edu.

I work for a university, hence the appendage on my email.  Many vendors, but particularly those who sell software, give educational discounts on their software.  The problem is that I work in a center that does a lot of work with commercial interests, thus requiring we have commercial licenses on our software and any other equipment we need to buy.

This is not a big deal except when it comes to getting support or information from the vendors.  That little appendage on my email means certain doom.  The assumption is that, because I am at a university, I must be a student and don’t have the right to get support from the vendor.  There are also those vendors who won’t call back to give prices, likely for a similar reason: I’m probably a student who doesn’t have any money to spend.

While I really like where I work, this is one of the more frustrating aspects of the job.  I would like to say it’s a fluke, but it happens to my colleagues and myself on such a regular basis that I know it’s not someone just having a bad day.  I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for an actual student.

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