On a Thursday evening a month or so ago, I found myself in front of the Student Government Senate Budget Committee (SBC). As I was trying to give a presentation for my club (Philosophy Club) with a stuffy nose, and while being somewhat unprepared as well, I noticed some members giggling. I couldn’t believe how rude they were and how little they must have cared about what I had to say as I struggled to keep focus. It’s the SBC’s job to make a budget proposal to the Senate, which is later approved or vetoed by the president.

Despite the SBC’s rudeness and lack of professionalism that went on during my presentation, members from the committee thought the process went fairly well. Mike D’Eugenio, the Senate Parliamentarian and a non-voting member of the SBC told me, “We’re a very, very professional committee. Everyone has been very impressed with the way things are going.”

Boca campus Governor Alvira Khan added, “It’s been running great. I think it’s running the best I’ve ever seen.”

So am I just crazy? Was my experience an anomaly? I thought that way till I spoke with Ernest Grahm, a constituent with the Black Student Union.

“I’m giving our presentation, I hear notebooks slamming on the ground, people sighing, laying back in their chairs, tapping their pencils,” Grahm told me. “But there were some that were professional.”

Another person from a club, who wished not to be named, said that they weren’t even listening to their club’s presentation. “There were a couple of members who were obviously not listening. Strangely enough, it was these members that asked questions that had to some extent already been addressed during my presentation,” said the club representative.

This by no means is the extent of the complaints. In an email from Student Body President Ancel Pratt III, he told me that with regards to downright unprofessionalism and rudeness, “A lot of organizations have experienced the same.” He went on to say that, “Other students don’t know the process of ensuring that their organization is treated the way it is supposed to be treated.”

While some clubs didn’t appreciate how they were treated, SBC Vice Chair Michael Hallenstein told me, “This is not a humorless exercise. There was some joking around as far as back-and-forth between the students because a lot of students know each other.” As far as being unprofessional though, “We don’t mess around while the meetings are taking place.”

So I guess all these clubs are just hallucinating SBC members messing around during the meetings.

But there is something we as students can do about this – vote. Student Government elections are April 13 and 14 and nine of the 11 members (both voting and non-voting) of the SBC are running for office, including Khan, who is running for president, Hallenstein, who is running for Senate and SBC chair Dan Wilson (who didn’t return numerous messages I left him), who is running for Boca Governor.

As Pratt points out, people in SG “are elected and put into office by the student body to service the students.”

So if you don’t think people in SG are doing their jobs, then vote them out. It’s practically been Pratt’s mantra — “Hold everyone in Student Government accountable. … we need to be able to call people out.”

Or you can just vote your friends in and to hell with everyone else.