The University of Central Florida Barnes & Noble supposedly gave a freshman new hire a common ultimatum: skip class to work or be fired.

Parents of UCF students have expressed outrage with the interaction that supposedly took place between a freshman employee and manager at the UCF Barnes & Noble.

The new hire was encouraged by the bookstore administrator to skip freshman convocation as well as his classes to work at the bookstore. The student skipped convocation but did not volunteer to miss class.

The administrator told the student he would be fired if he did not comply and reportedly asked why the student would not comply given students in the past have accommodated their request without conflict, according to the parent, who did not wish to be identified.

“He was hired to work at the bookstore by the Student Union. They scheduled him to work during freshman convocation and they wouldn’t change the schedule, therefore, he had to miss convocation,” said the parent.

“Then they scheduled him to work at the same time he had class. He spoke to the manager to inform her of the conflict and she said she would not change it and actually encouraged him to skip class to come work. She told him if he does not come to his shift and goes to class instead he would be fired.”

“He told her he was not going to skip one of his classes; she said ‘why not? Everyone else does.'”

The parent expressed their frustration and a dialogue found that the incident would not be reported, to keep the relationship of the freshman with UCF intact.

When Knight News reached out to UCF for comment, a spokeswoman stated the bookstore manager asked his team about the incident but nothing came up as of the discussion.

“We’ve reached out to the bookstore manager who has inquired about this allegation with his team. They are not aware of any such incident occurring at any of their UCF locations,” said Heather Smith, Assistant Director for Media Relations.

The message was relayed to the parent.

“UCF wouldn’t know about it because it wasn’t reported to them. It did happen, with a female manager/Supervisor. But of course, they are going to deny it. I know it happened but don’t want to disclose names. The student doesn’t want it coming back to bite [them].”

The freshman’s account was not the only one to surface due to complaints with bookstore management.

Knight News made a public records request for complaints made against bookstore administrators and discovered one complaint while anecdotes arose on social media of similar incidents.

 

The lone complaint from the new hire characterized the bookstore managers as dismissive, lacking communication or concern, and reiterated trouble with scheduling the student’s shifts after the Fall semester ended, according to the document.

The student, Sydney Wolf, spoke with Knight News and confirmed the interactions.

Wolf’s email from Barnes & Noble Regional to the local bookstore manager at the John T. Washington Center appeared to go unresponded, according to a public records request, which included only the one document chain.

The anecdotes on social media had mixed reactions. Two direct replies from both sides are included:

Email news@knightnews.com with news tips.

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Public record: Bookstore complaints August 2018