Friday, September 15, 2006

A talk about incompetence

Today was orientation for my graduate program, so after several hours of useful but please-stab-a-pencil-in-my-eye boring talk about all sorts of bureaucratic hootennany, we were then sent out to get our ID cards. We had been told that the education studies department had made arrangements with the business office so that we could get our cards before the first day of class (easier for us, spread out their workload. Good stuff all around). I get there, and the girl says she needs a department letter on letterhead in order to get me my ID. What! I try to explain the situation, but no luck. I turn away, and explain what she said to the others from the program that have since gotten in line. Luckily, the person in back of me is a bit feistier, and she gets the girl to call the department with the threat that there are tons more of us coming in (there are only 18 of us total, but never you mind that fact). After giving us a look like we're asking her to walk there or something, she finally does it, gets the approval, and takes our pictures. As we're waiting for the laminator to do its thing, we sit in the waiting area, where there is a flier about the procedures for getting ID cards. The second bullet point for the grad student procedures (the second of two, mind you), is that education studies students don't need a letter to get their IDs. Skills.

On a brighter note, it looks like I'm going to be having a lot more free time this year then I was expecting. Yay!

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