Alrighty, I figured that this was a bit too tame for GD, so here it is. <sigh> Such is my life.
Anyway, I recently applied for the position of prefect at my high school’s dorms next year. For those of you who don’t know what a prefect is, it’s like a Resident Advisor at college: a student who kinda acts as a link between the other kids and the faculty. I’m gonna be a senior next year, and I’ll be living out there all year, so I figured hey, why the Hell not?
Part of the application process is to get three recommendations. Two is from fellow boarders out at school, and one is from a teacher or advisor. These recommendations aren’t really necessary, but they help.
Anyway, I applied, and I got the position (Yay! Poor bastards, they gave me authority. They have no idea what evils they’ve unleashed upon the world). However, the teacher who I asked to write a rec. gave it to me a bit late, and I didn’t have a chance to get it to the powers that be before they had made the decision.
So, I currently have in my possesion one sealed letter with (hopefully) good stuff written about me from a teacher that I really like.
Here’s the dilemma: do I open it up, and read the comments? Or do I respect the fact that my teacher expected for the rec. to be seen only by the residential life committee, and not by me? (This is the reason that it was in a sealed envelope)
I know, it’s not exactly an abortion question or anything, but hey, it’s kinda bugging me. So now all of you guys get to play the part of my concious! Huzzah!
Any suggestions?
Lose it. Burn it. Destroy it.
Seriously.
There are only two possiblities:
She said something nasty about you, which’ll tarnish your memories of her
or
She said something nice, in which case you’ll feel like a shit for having “spied” on her and betrayed her trust.
Either way, you lose.
Of course, a third option is that you call her, explain the situation and ask her what she wants done with the letter. There’s every possiblity that she’ll suggest that you can read it.
As an aside, usually the reason letters like this are sealed is that it insures to the letter recipent that you haven’t tampered with the content, not so that you won’t know what’s in it.
Fenris (on Nyquil an dbarely coherent)
Look. Dude. You got a responsible position in a decent high school (who else would have “prefects”?). Go for the bonus points. This teacher more than likely respects you for some reason. RETURN IT TO THEM UNOPENED! Explain you seriously appreciate the effort they put into it, but the job was yours before it was turned in. MAJOR bonus points for integrity. (And personally, that is the A-#1 attribute that means anything, IMHO). So do it! Save the guilt from opening it when you weren’t intended as the recipient, or the issues if it wasn’t what you expected.
TURN IT BACK UNOPENED.
Not knowing what’s in it is also important–many people wil write a more honest evaluation if they know that the person evaluated will never see it.
The traditional end-run around this types of thing is to let someone ELSE read it and tell you what it said. Unfortunantly, you are probably a little too old to convince yourself that this is acceptable.
What you ought to do is think ahead to your college admissions recomendations, which this same lady will also be writting, I suspect? If so, giving it back to her, sealed, will give her a nice little anecdote about your integrity. You might even make a little joke about how tempted you were, just to make sure she gets the point. And, hearing the joke, she might let you read it.
I wouldn’t read it. Your teacher wrote it with the belief that it would go to the committee without you reading it. It’s not fair to change the rules.
Some teachers & profs who have written me recs have given me copies as a courtesy, so I could read them without breaking the seal on the original. Others didn’t, but that is no reason to believe they were not flattering. I think that some teachers use a different “voice” in talking about a student’s gifts and talents to other teachers–different than they would in talking to you. They might speak about the same attributes they would to you directly, but to other adults or teachers they might write it a bit more, well, parental, perhaps. It might come off as more condescending or more affectionate than would make you (or them) comfortable if you were to read it. Of course, that might not be true at all. It might just be that the teacher believes that sealed recommendations should be just that.
If I were you, I’d take the sealed recommendation back to the teacher. Tell him/her that you realized (too late) that you had to get the application in sooner than you realized, so you weren’t able to use the rec after all (these might be a bit of polite fiction, but you don’t want the teacher to think you’re saying “Screw you for giving this late, thanks but no thanks”). Express your appreciation again. And then hand over the sealed recommendation with the explanation that you thought you’d return it for safekeeping and hoped it would be helpful next time you ask him/her for a rec.
I think that would further impress the teacher with your integrity. And it would get it out of your hands lest you be tempted to read it.
If you follow the very sound advice of giving it back to the teacher, explaining you already got the position, but it was sooner than you expected, thank you thank you, blah blah blah, I’m banking that the teacher’s response will be “oh, and it was such a good recommendation, too!” Then you can feel good on both counts.
You really want to know what’s in there? Four words:
VCR Head Cleaning Fluid
I don’t know if they still make the stuff, but in life (don’t ask where) I found the stuff to be damn valuable at reading the inside of sealed letters and envelopes. They base it on formaldehyde, so it would evaporate without leaving a trace and without smearing or smudging contents (just don’t inhale). A little spy trick I learned.
I will not say how I used it or for what purposes, but I will say that it worked for me. I just hope that you aren’t skeezy enough to do it. I would give the rec back and say that you couldn’t turn it in. It was past the deadline. You’ll never know, and you will feel sound in the fact that you didn’t need to know if you got the job without it! 
Tripler
Coming to you live off of a cellular modem. Last post for a WHILE!!
[Edited by Eutychus55 on 05-01-2001 at 04:52 AM]
Dammit!! Preview!!
Mods, another touch of help please?!?
Much obliged!
Trip