Much of friday was spent in the confines of a beaurocratic Catch 22 situation whilst I struggled to re-enroll for my last year of University.
It went something like this.
I couldn't get through the door, because I had a nominal sum of fees left over from a year ago (which the university staff had only noticed in the past few months) and therefore my Student ID card locked me out.
However in order to deal with this matter I needed access to the finance department. In order to get to them I needed to get through several other stages of 'processing' for my enrolment and I couldn't get through those steps if I had a financial impediment to my enrollment (the aforementioned outstanding fees). I was stuffed, beureaucratically bitch-slapped with all the vigour my University can muster.
In the end I managed to get into the building thanks to a sympathetic security guard. I began the process of enrollment but was quickly turned back and as the finance department were all processing the 3rd stage of enrollment which I could not progress to if I had not completed the 1st stage of enrollment. Things looked bleak.
In the end I went to a different campus building and spoke to a different set of Cashiers and finally managed to pay off the oustanding fee, I was then informed that I would not be able to enroll without a program of studies, which is normally mailed to you during the summer.
Unfortunately my university had seen fit to estop the dispatchment of my program of studies because of the oustanding fee (who's history has been peppered with assurances from alternating finance department employees as to its ficticious and quite definite existence, respectively).
I later joined a queue at the promising sounding "Undergraduate Registry Office" where I had been directed by the Cashier. When I reached the end of the rather lengthy queue I was informed that I had not in fact been standing in the correct queue, nor was I in the correct office.
I finally found the correct office ("The department of general defenestration" or some such thing) and by virtue of my natural people skills and possibly the exasperated expression on my face I received the plethora of papers which I required to prove that I had paid off the phantom fee, had a program of studies and would like very much to receive further news of Tackola inc Toastmeister and Toastmeister related products.
I finally enrolled and in a miraculous turn of events, my Student ID Smartcard worked for the first ever as I exited the building. I caught the next train back to Colchester, enjoying my chutney-riddled Boots sandwich far more than it probably deserved.
God I love my University.
Posted by John Swaine at October 12, 2004 12:46 AM | TrackBack