You'd think that a school with a big ass endowment can afford to spend some of it on hiring competent administrators to run it smartly and efficiently. Apparently not. In order to be cleared for this one requirement so that I can graduate, this person told me that I need to produce two letters from another office saying exactly xyz. No matter that I was only ever sent one letter -- now, instead of communicating with that other office to ascertain a fact that I've offered proof of over and over again, I'm being told that it's on me to get the other letter. Who knows how long it'll take to actually get to me, and by then it'll probably be too late anyway.
I realize it's not a big deal and that big bureaucracies need to have rules, but I think in this case it's overly rigid (there are some other details I won't bother going into -- just take my word for it :) This administration runs a school, not a country. The person I'm dealing with acts like she's afraid she'll get ripped apart by her boss if she showed some independent thinking, but she's basically the boss and one who 唔識轉彎 at that.
I guess I shouldn't be this frustrated, it's just that certain other things about my law school have already boggled my mind. In college if I needed a tax form filled out I just brought it to the registrar's and they would do it right away. Here, I have to come back the next week to pick it up. In college the IT infrastructure was coherent and efficient. Here I have four different sets of user names and passwords (btw, the email interface sucks too). And now, I'm basically acting as the go between for two different branches of this big ass bureaucracy. Effing overrated.
Labels: school