Bureaucracy anyone? Jan. 14, 1986
What was I thinking when I decided to go back to college
again?
I forgot all about the bureaucracy and how nasty the machine
can be.
I should have known how screwed up things would get when I
tried to get readmitted last July and was told by the admissions office there would
be no problem for my getting placement in September.
They informed me that the deadline had been extended which
of course it hadn’t been, or they forgot that’s what they told me. The $50
readmission bill I got in the mail should have at least guaranteed I was in
route for September placement, even if I wasn’t supposed to have been charged.
I should have known things were screwed up because when
September came, no dice fellah, no paperwork, no word from the college at all.
So, being the reasonable person I sometimes am, I called the
college and asked about Spring. I even paid the college a visit and picked up
the booklet listing all of the spring classes, twice, reminding them that I had
not yet received any work about my 1986 admission.
“Don’t worry,” they told me. “It’s all taken care of.”
And then during the ensuing months, I heard less and less
from those wonderful official, even though I called again and again.
Finally, someone said, “The paper work is in the mail.
Great, I thought, all the bullshit is over, and I can
finally get on with this educational process.
Three days later, I called again.
“Where’s the stuff?” I asked.
In the mail again? At least, that’s what they told me.
Then, three days prior to the start of the spring semester,
they said, “Your paperwork was never switched over from the September file.
So, they told me to come up to the college yesterday – the next
to last day for possible registration – where I had to do all the required
stuff, and of course there were new steps.
Nobody told me what time I should arrive, so I went as early
as possible. Luckily for me I had because I had to track down a dean to sign an
admission permission slip. Only the humanities dean sent me to an English
professor, who in turn sent me to the head of the English Department.
Confusing, eh?
It got worse.
At registration I waited an hour just to get in, only to be
told I would have to pay a late fee.
I complained. They sent me to some official who said I would
have to see the dean of admissions. After another twenty minutes, I was on my
way to the bursar’s office, where after another hour wait on line again, I was
told they had no record of the $50 fee I had paid prior to September. They sent
me back to the admission’s office to get a receipt, where after another 20 minute
wait, I was told they either had never received it or had never cashed my check.
I would have to produce the cancelled check, they said, or
pay the whole semester’s fees in full, and if I didn’t have a copy of the
check, I needed to go to my bank by the next day and have them produce proof of
my payment.
No need to tell you how peeved I was by this time. I had
bureaucracy bubbling out both of my ears.
I went back to the dean who told me the same thing, only in nicer
terms. claiming his office was doing the best it could.
If this was the best, I thought, maybe I should give up
trying.
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