Update: After check the housing policies of the university this girl attends, I think the situation she describes sounds incompatible with the dorms on her campus. Maybe it’s an off-campus situation she describes. Anyway, it’s probably not fair to direct my outrage over her alleged living situation to the university itself. I think officials there would recognize and avoid the potential for such a warped arrangement.
While the specific problem described below has not been verified, the crazy concept of “gender-neutral” dorms sponsored by universities is creeping into this nation, and is a sign of either a pathetic lack of common sense or a cynical attempt to further corrupt the youth of this nation.
Original post:
Yesterday my son and I were in line, for a very long time, at the self checkout lane at Wal-Mart, experiencing the wonders of truly inadequate technology. (I think 6 of 8 self checkout lanes were down with technical problems, and our checkout experience revealed some annoying bugs in the faulty system this ailing company is using. The system called for human cashier help six different times during the process, and it wasn’t entirely due to my low IQ. If you’ve got Wal-Mart stock, I’d sell it now.)
While we were waiting for the first person in line to go through her self checkout ordeal, we had plenty of time to chat with an outgoing young lady in front of us. She was a very bright 17-year-old girl who was already a junior in college at one of the state schools in Wisconsin. We were impressed with what she has done academically, but totally astounded when she told us about her living arrangements. There weren’t a lot of on-campus apartments available when she registered, so she took what the university offered her: sharing a dorm with a guy. Well, not just any guy – a 32-year-old man.
I’ve offered my cynical opinions before about the reckless attitudes of some adults at universities who seem to allow or even encourage an “anything goes” attitude that leads to or facilitates revolting levels of substance abuse and promiscuity. I know some leaders feel that they can’t do anything else given the pressures from irresponsible Federal legislation, but I don’t see how any sane university can excuse this kind of situation. Assigning or even allowing a teenage girl to be a roommate with a thirty-something man? Are they deliberately trying to be accessories to a felony? The girl said it’s been kind of creepy, but she’s getting used to it.
Creepy indeed. Our nation is increasingly turning its kids over to people who seem to not only have basic morals, but lack even faint tinges of common sense. (The even greater problem is the parents who allow this.) Hats off to the students who resist these influences and stay on the straight and narrow path – a path that may very well lead one far from the dorms!
(By the way, my self-checkout results were fairly positive: only slightly mentally ill. Better than I hoped.)
You should report this to your local newspaper to try and get this story out in the open.
I mean come on, 32 year-old man rooming with a 17 year-old girl? That’s outrageous! Where are her parents? I hope they would throw a fit to the university.
!!!!!
You really didn’t make this up?!
I hadn’t heard that Wal-Mart was in any trouble. I sure hope they make it through.
I love Wal-Mart! They make things affordable for people like me. And if the government and the rest of the so-called do-gooders will stay out of their business, they will continue to make things affordable for people like me.
I began shopping there because I couldn’t afford to shop anywhere else, but I’ll continue to shop there when my finances improve. They’ve earned my loyalty I hope they fix the glitches in their new system and make it work. Anything new has glitches, it doesn’t mean it should be scrapped.
Jayleen, Wal-Mart is an impressive business in many ways, I’ll admit. Have to respect a lot of what they do. But if you comparison shop, you’ll see that they have lost the low-price edge that helped fuel their growth in the past. In our area, for example, the German chain, Aldi, offers significant price savings for food and some other items. And for meat, we find much higher quality and lower prices, typically, at our local Cedar Creek Meat Market. Kohls gets our business for clothing, providing much better selections and prices, IMO. But there are some things I really like Wal-Mart for.
As for the recommendation to sell stock if you own it, I consider on-the-site observations to be an important consideration for investing in many cases. When I see high investment into a faulty technology – the self-serve lanes really aren’t working out, IMO – it’s often a symptom of other problems in execution and decision making. To me, it’s a potential sell signal – but do your own diligence! I’m not in Wal-Mart, preferring to be in commodities like SLW, DNN, AUY, KGC, and SRLM.on, refiners (FTO and MRO), biotech (CELG, SGMO, ENZ), some Canroys (PGH and AAV now), and my microcap fave, INVC. I think the upside to Wal-Mart is too limited to interest me now.
Another red-flag with Wal-Mart and their implementation of technology has been their photo department. They’ve “upgraded” their self-service photo machines to a system that is much slower and more limited than their previous technology. I used to have good results getting inexpensive photos printed there – now I generally stay away. It’s a reflection of the same problems I see with the self checkout technology. A potential red flag for long-term investors.
Kathleen, no, I didn’t make this up. I hope the girl was just making it all up, but it’s no secret that some universities now allow men and women to share the same dorm room. See “In dorms, men and women now room together from CS Monitor.
Jeff,
I’m starting to believe that the girl made it up. 1) She’s either not 17, or she’s not a junior in college, and 2) she’s probably not shacking up with a 32 year old guy, unless she chose to.
You know, that’s possible. It’s just so strange because the conversation was all about her major and her plans, and so forth, and only toward the end did I ask if she was on campus. She downplayed it and shared with some reluctance – not like the whole conversation was aimed at dropping a shocking lie on me.
She looked more like 17 than 19.
I call shenanigans on her also.
I can’t believe a university would allow itself to be open to such liability.
I went to a state school in Massachusetts in the mid-late 80s and lived in a co-ed dorm, and there were never any security issues. Self-regulation goes a long way to avoid problems. So, I am not opposed to co-ed buildings, but a situation that supposedly she described would be problematic at best.
G. Gordon Liddy had an interesting quote back when I used to listen to him.
“If you put the he’s and the she’s together, there’s going to be some he-ing and she-ing going on.”
I know co-ed dorms have been around for a long time, but I don’t like the idea.
Co-ed floors within a co-ed dorm are even worse, because the residents end up using the shower/restroom closest to them instead of the one that is for their gender.
Co-ed rooms in unversity owned or operated housing, whether on or off campus? Fuhgedaboudit!
Wal-Mart stock has been very weak in the past 3 years. Where is the vision that will restore their leadership?
“Co-ed floors within a co-ed dorm are even worse, because the residents end up using the shower/restroom closest to them instead of the one that is for their gender.”
As I stated above, there was a lot of self-regulation going on. It was very well known that you must use the facilites for your gender – even if you are visiting an opposite sex wing or dorm, you are not to use the wrong bathroom/shower.
I have never known of a case where that happened – I’m sure it has happened at some time in the past, but again, teaching correct principles and letting adults govern themselves works in cases like these.
But I agree that co-ed ROOMS are problematic.
Yikes!
I guess I’m about as socially-liberal as they come, but I can’t disagree with the general consensus–this is creepy!
There’s 30-something woman living in my dorm and THAT makes me kind of uncomfortable even though she has her own room.
Something odd about my dorm that I haven’t found anywhere else is multi-stall gender-neutral bathrooms. Does anyone else think this is odd, or have I been under a rock for a long time?
She’s sleeping with the guy and this is her cover story.
I agree, the simplest explanation is likely to be the correct one in a situation like this.