For context, I’m 20 and I’m a second year university student. For one of my classes, I am the class rep. As class rep, I am asked a myriad of questions daily by my fellow peers relating to the course. But obviously that’s what comes with being a class rep. But amongst said questions, there are times when my peers would ask me questions that I have already answered (either I have the answer to the question pinned in the group chat or I have all the important information in the groups chat). Although it’s a bit annoying to constantly have to reiterate answers that are already available, I still take my time to respond because at the end of the day, that is my responsibility as class rep.
Well yesterday, our lecturer asked me to inform the group that we will not have a lecture this week. So as asked, I went into the group chat and said:
\*Important announcement\*
There is no Tutorial this week or during any test week! So please don’t go to the tut venue on Tuesday or else you will be by yourself 😭
And majority of the class reacted to my message letting me know that they saw it. And the rest of that day, there was no further communication in the group. Then this morning someone texts “Hey guys do we have a lecture today😔” and I responded by referencing the message I sent yesterday.
Then out of frustration, I went and texted screenshots to my sisters in our sister groupchat essentially venting and saying “I told the class that there are not lectures this week and then someone asks me this this morning. ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS FUCKING SCROLL UP FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND.” And about 5 minutes went by when I realized I sent the screenshots and the texts to the groupchat with my peers. Immediately deleted the messages and texted “ sorry guys, plz ignore that 😭🙏🏾”. Then one student responded, “We saw that” and another one said “yeah we did” and then I texted “I’m genuinely so sorry guys. Genuinely it’s no excuse, but I’m having a bad day and vented to the wrong group. I’m so sorry. I don’t hold any resentment or anger towards anyone. It was simply just a moment of frustration” to which another student responded a sticker of someone giving a side-eye. I felt so terrible that I decided to send another message stating:
“I want to apologise for the messages I sent earlier. It was meant for a private chat and shouldn’t have been posted here. I’m sorry because it was rude, mean and dismissive. I appreciate everyone in the class and as class rep, it is my responsibility to make sure I’m available for everyone who needs help with anything with patience and understanding. I completely understand the anger currently being directed to me, you all have a right to feel that way. I’ll make sure to be more careful in future with how I address my frustrations.”
God, I feel terrible.
NTA, move on and forget about it. Although dude… why would anyone check regularly on any group chat? If they don’t see your notification and don’t read what you sent it is not your problem and let them wait for the lecturer who will never come… who cares?
YTA
You’re taking this class rep thing far too personally. You’re not a shepherd or a den mother. You get info, you pass it on. People know where to get it and if they don’t that’s on them. What you did was rude and unnecessary, and what does it matter to you if people ignore the info and waste their own time? Stop treating them like children.
A myriad daily? Seriously? Methinks you need to dial down the self-importance on this very small responsibility. .
Is it actually your responsibility to answer the same question from every student in the class? It seems to me all you have to do is make it clear that all announcements are pinned at the top of the group chat (or are wherever) and people need to check that location once a day.
Remind people when they ask you a question about something that’s posted that they need to check the announcements daily — that’s where they’ll find all the info they need.
That should limit the number of separate questions you get, so you won’t have to get so frustrated by this “job.” Right now, it sounds like you’re not being clear with the people who need to hear it that they NEED to check the announcements. You seem to be creating extra work for yourself and over-estimating the role you need to play.
The point is — if you make your position more manageable, you won’t find yourself needing to vent about how frustrated you are and won’t risk venting in the wrong place.
YTA.
You kinda gotta understand that people tend to be stupid as fuck sometimes. Some people are just legitimately clueless. That doesn’t mean that you should judge them or ridicule them behind their backs. It’s not to say that your feelings aren’t valid, but rather it’s to say that you should try to hold your tongue about those people and to keep those thoughts to yourself. I do think though that you can improve so good luck with that :3
I understand what you are saying. But I wasn’t judging them or ridiculing them. I was just frustrated and saying “I’ve reiterated the same thing so many times and I’m tired of doing that. Why can’t they just read the group description like I’ve stated multiple times”. And again, the venting was meant to be private (sent to my sisters) but I accidentally sent it to the wrong group. So my classmates weren’t meant to see that. That was honestly the one time I’ve genuinely lost my cool and i just happened to accidentally send that to them.
However, I will make an effort to better control my frustration.
ngl you’re being way too hard on yourself here, you made a human mistake and actually handled the aftermath pretty maturely. the thing is, people dont read announcements no matter how many times you post them, tats just a fact of group chats and its not your fault for getting frustrated about it. you apologized genuinely and thats more than most people would do, so like move forward and dont let this eat at you
YTA. Yeah, it’s frustrating when people ignore messages because they find it easier to just ask you, but that comes with the territory.
*Oh, sorry you all saw me talking shit about you. You weren’t supposed to see that, I was just telling someone else about you!*
Your apology wasn’t that great, either.
The point of my apology wasn’t to win anyone over. It was to take responsibility for what I did and that was that. I’d rather give a bad genuine apology than a perfect one that’s disingenuous.
You didn’t take responsibility for what you did. Or well, technically I suppose you took “responsibility”, just not accountability.
Also, an apology cannot be disingenuous unless you aren’t actually sorry.
Which, you know, fair enough: You don’t seem to be. You literally reaffirmed to these folks that they frustrate you, but no worries, next time you’ll make extra sure they don’t see you talking behind their back!
This is clearly not the right responsibility for you, you’ve made it harder for yourself by feeling the need to answer every question, despite the answer being already there, which isn’t your responsibility, and then you get frustrated when you have to do the thing you’re making yourself do. And then to top it off, your apology sucked.
Girl what? In my apology I literally said “I’ll make sure to be more careful in future with how I address my frustrations” meaning that in the future if I’m frustrated, I’m not going to be rude and mean about it and instead work on being understanding and patient. I also included “I’m sorry because it was rude, mean and dismissive. I appreciate everyone in the class and as class rep, it is my responsibility to make sure I’m available for everyone who needs help with anything with patience and understanding. I completely understand the anger currently being directed to me, you all have a right to feel that way.” Maybe I have a misunderstanding of what accountability is, so please correct me if I’m wrong. But I’m pretty sure that in my apology I did take both accountability and responsibility?
I’m genuinely confused by what you mean by “bad apology”. I was honest in my apology. What? Should I have said “I didn’t mean what I said when I was venting” or “I sorry I was frustrated with you guys” No because that would be disingenuous. However I’m apologising because the way I vented was rude and harsh.
And I also don’t know why you’re acting like me being frustrated that people ask the same things over and over despite me constantly repeating myself over and over is unreasonable? I’m pretty sure you’ve been frustrated with someone you’ve worked with before. Like maybe a boss or teacher or something and you vented to your friends about it. That’s literally what happened in my case, only difference was, I accidentally sent that vent to the wrong people. Like for example, you venting about your boss to your coworkers just to realize your boss has been standing behind you the whole time and heard everything you said.
YTA. You’re also an idiot haha