The voice of a bookstore employee

These students rack up enough hours to get a large paycheck and the ability to access the discount (20% off textbooks, 35% off everything else besides convenience items) which requires a minimum of 30 hours. I needed to work the whole semester in order to pay for books, phone service, and other hidden University charges. I felt very lucky that the person who hired me, assured me that working for the entire semester wouldn't be a problem.

I started at the University Bookstore on August 26, 2002. Throughout the course of rush I worked a total of 21 hours confident that there was plenty of time to acquire the necessary 30 hours to access the discount.

On Thursday September 12, 2002, the official end of rush, I received my first paycheck. Attached to my check was a peculiar letter thanking me for working rush and offering me the opportunity to reapply for the next rush in January of 2003.

I quickly took the letter and my confusion to the assistant manager to tell her there was some kind of mistake. She assured me there was no mistake and that all the students who were hired at the close of summer were done so with the intentions of only giving them hours during rush.

I tried to explain to her that the man who hired me promised I could work the whole semester and it wouldn't be a problem. But she repeatedly answered me with the same response. When I referred to the man that hired me my stomach sank and my eyes filled with tears as he told me there was nothing he could do for me, something about a budget cut.

At this point most on-campus jobs are already filled and my old job was out of the question because there was no room in my schedule for the commute. I suddenly realized that I hadn't worked enough hours to even get the discount on my textbooks. Thankfully, he told me I could have the discount anyway.

If I had known I was only going to be hired for rush I would never have quit my old job and taken the job at the Bookstore. I believe that had the managers at the Bookstore been honest with the student employees, hired over the summer, and warned them about the cutbacks, maybe students like myself could've avoided this position.

Instead, there are students on this campus that are out of a job because, in my opinion, the Bookstore didn't put the Tufts community first. In addition to this, two weeks after rush, there are junctures when the line at the register extends deep into the store.

At these times, students are forced to sit in line waiting due to the lack of student employees. The Bookstore is such a vital element to student life it's a shame that it doesn't take into consideration the students as employees opposed to mere customers.

Jessica Cooney is an English major