Ropes of Sand

Escaping from Bureaucracy

I'll start with the positives: my short story "Abyssinia" was selected by Robert Olen Butler as one of the finalists in that World's Best Short Short Story Contest, and will be in the next issue of Southeast Review.

Now on to the bureaucracy. Today's lesson was one in how far removed we are from the days when we could just walk into Connie's office or steal a cigarette from Deb and say, "How do I fix this?"

So I got an email a while back from the Florida State registrar saying that because they had never received official transcripts from me, I could not register for the spring semester. Keep in mind that registering here at a university of something like a billion graduate students (there are more than 100 folks in the English department alone) involves something more than filling out a few pieces of paper and hoping Connie puts them in the right pile. Naturally, I called the registrar and said, "I was admitted. I sent them with my application. The English Department has the copies that were sent AT THE SAME TIME AS YOUR COPIES. So why don't you have yours?"

REGISTRAR: "Um, I dunno. But you can't register."

SK: "Well what do I need to do?"

REGISTRAR: "We need official transcripts. By Wednesday."

(SOUND OF SK MUTTERING, THEN SOBBING)
SK: "Which transcripts do you have?"

REGISTRAR: "William and Mary (BA), Johns Hopkins (MA), University of Iowa (MFA)"

SK: "Those are all I've got."

REGISTRAR:"Actually it says on your William and Mary transcript that you took a sociology class at a community college in 1985."

Filling in the blanks here, basically this class was an attempt to placate my mom, so I wouldn't be sitting around all summer drinking beer and going to the beach (which is what I did anyway) and it never counted for anything as William and Mary won't accept transfer credits unless there are extraordinary circumstances.

But the best part is that this community college has no record of my existence.

posted by Kistulentz @ Tuesday, October 11, 2005