Special Fees Petitions: Why Just Sign When You Can Just Think?

It’s the start of Special Fees Petition time.  Save Christmas and my upcoming Spring Break trip to Vegas, I’ve been anticipating little else other than Special Fees Petition time.  It really is great.

Strangers approach me with laptops — not as gifts, but as tools meant to pressure me into supporting their groups’ request for Special Fees.  They must think to themselves, *If I approach this girl who seems to be purposefully ignoring me and if I brandish a MacBook in her face and eagerly whoop for support, it’ll be super fun! *

Well here’s my truth: I don’t think it’s fun.

Shouting at me and brandishing expensive laptops in my face will not convince me to sign your petitions.  When I sign, I do so because I value the organization, its mission, and the way it runs it’s organization.  It may be weird and old-fashioned, but I actually think before I sign my name.  I question and I ask myself *why *I’m signing.

Giving blindly is reckless.  Just evaluate first.  It may not be as easy as clicking a link while some student group lackey smiles a toothy grin meant to pressure, but you should always do it.  So when they say, “Just sign, it takes 15 seconds,” I say, “Just think, it shouldn’t be that easy.”