Knowing How to Act
I returned to Callie Davis’ office on Tuesday morning. The task was to get to the much coveted and needed Duke ID.
She called the IT office and spoke to someone that attempted to get me to the point of changing my name from my preferred name of Michael to my given name, John.
As I noted yesterday, I could not get logged into the Duke Hub portal to do anything. The log on information I used, that I set up, kept kicking me out of the system.
The IT person said that I had to log on to get to the place where I could change my name. To do that, I had to change my password. For the record, I changed my password on Monday to no avail.
It took a bit of trying, but we got the password changed. Then I was instructed to go to subpage on my profile. There I could change my name from the present Michael to the needed John. This was done and off I went to get my Duke ID.
Before I left, Callie said I should take a screen shot of the monitor where it says that I now am John and not Michael. That in hand I walked to the Duke Card office to get my lovely visage placed on a piece of plastic that would allow me to check out books in the library.
I entered the card office and went to the gentleman that had told me I could not go by Michael. He took my paper work and began looking to see if I qualified for the card. In less than a minute he says, “You are still listed as Michael.”
I told him of the ordeal I had been through and how we talked to the IT person and was told how to change my name. Taking out my phone, I showed him the screen shot.
“That does not change it in the system. It only changes it as what would show up on an email you would send.”
I am not getting a Duke email address, just a card to check out books.
Then he starts typing on his keyboard. I ask what is he doing? He says he is sending an email to a person in IT to get my name changed.
Let’s hit the pause button: Callie asked every person we talked to in IT why could they not just override the system and go in and change the name. The reply was that they did not have that power.
And here is the person that sent me on this journey, “A Road to Nowhere” with apologies to the Talking Heads, and he is able to change it then and there?
Long story, short: I have my Duke ID.
The best thing that happened yesterday was worship in Goodson Chapel. The Sankofa Black Alumni Preaching series is taking place. Sankofa means “to reach back and get it.: The preacher was Rev. Dr. Stephen Greene Howard, Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, NC.
His text was from Proverbs 6, and focused on Proverbs 6:6 that reads:
“Go to the ant, you lazybones;
consider its ways and be wise.”
Dr. Greene spoke of the wisdom of the ant and he gave a quote he attributed to his grandmother. She said: “Wisdom is where knowledge goes to find out how to act.”
What I heard from that is that we have lots of knowledge in our day, but little wisdom. We know many things, but we lack the wisdom to know how we should conduct ourselves.
All we have to do to find the truth of this is to look at our headlines and see how we as a society act towards each other and with each other.
To put it my way, we have more knowledge than we have sense to use.
She called the IT office and spoke to someone that attempted to get me to the point of changing my name from my preferred name of Michael to my given name, John.
As I noted yesterday, I could not get logged into the Duke Hub portal to do anything. The log on information I used, that I set up, kept kicking me out of the system.
The IT person said that I had to log on to get to the place where I could change my name. To do that, I had to change my password. For the record, I changed my password on Monday to no avail.
It took a bit of trying, but we got the password changed. Then I was instructed to go to subpage on my profile. There I could change my name from the present Michael to the needed John. This was done and off I went to get my Duke ID.
Before I left, Callie said I should take a screen shot of the monitor where it says that I now am John and not Michael. That in hand I walked to the Duke Card office to get my lovely visage placed on a piece of plastic that would allow me to check out books in the library.
I entered the card office and went to the gentleman that had told me I could not go by Michael. He took my paper work and began looking to see if I qualified for the card. In less than a minute he says, “You are still listed as Michael.”
I told him of the ordeal I had been through and how we talked to the IT person and was told how to change my name. Taking out my phone, I showed him the screen shot.
“That does not change it in the system. It only changes it as what would show up on an email you would send.”
I am not getting a Duke email address, just a card to check out books.
Then he starts typing on his keyboard. I ask what is he doing? He says he is sending an email to a person in IT to get my name changed.
Let’s hit the pause button: Callie asked every person we talked to in IT why could they not just override the system and go in and change the name. The reply was that they did not have that power.
And here is the person that sent me on this journey, “A Road to Nowhere” with apologies to the Talking Heads, and he is able to change it then and there?
Long story, short: I have my Duke ID.
The best thing that happened yesterday was worship in Goodson Chapel. The Sankofa Black Alumni Preaching series is taking place. Sankofa means “to reach back and get it.: The preacher was Rev. Dr. Stephen Greene Howard, Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, NC.
His text was from Proverbs 6, and focused on Proverbs 6:6 that reads:
“Go to the ant, you lazybones;
consider its ways and be wise.”
Dr. Greene spoke of the wisdom of the ant and he gave a quote he attributed to his grandmother. She said: “Wisdom is where knowledge goes to find out how to act.”
What I heard from that is that we have lots of knowledge in our day, but little wisdom. We know many things, but we lack the wisdom to know how we should conduct ourselves.
All we have to do to find the truth of this is to look at our headlines and see how we as a society act towards each other and with each other.
To put it my way, we have more knowledge than we have sense to use.
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