Anti-Climacus

An enjoyable week of bureaucratic nonsense, usually labelled "Kafkaesque:"

Had the good fortune of enduring not one but two crises this past week:

Crisis the first: I will be a VAP at Duke next year. Duke needs a copy of my transcript to prove that I graduated with my Ph.D. I received my Ph.D. from Duke just last year. The strangeness of that requirement seems odd to me, but I can accept the need for documentation even in the very obvious cases. Accordingly, I put in a request for a transcript; though the Registrar offers a web-based form, you are not allowed to make requests online; I opted to print-and-scan, as that seemed faster than mailing said form. One week later, I am informed that the Registrar cannot process my request because the Bursar has placed a hold on my account. My bursar account shows no balance. A day after emailing to request an explanation, I am told I have an unlisted balance of $18. Because I am no longer a student, and Duke's adoption of technology leaves much to be desired (see the web-based form), I must write a check--first one of the year!--and mail it to Duke.

At this point, my former department chair and all-around good guy Killer Grease Mungowitz steps in and offers to put up the $18 on my behalf, and I can pay him back when I return to Durham. He's going into the office anyway on Friday, and it should be no big difficulty for him; I send him all my student account information, everything seems set to go. Friday afternoon, he calls me to let me know that he couldn't make the payment because the Bursar decided to close early on Friday (KGrease: "it's already a long weekend, why not make it a little longer?"), indicating this in the form of a hand-written note on their office door. So I have to mail a check anyway.

Crisis the second: the postdocs at the program were housed in a separate building from the rest of the fellows. I heard through the grapevine that our offices would eventually be taken over by a different program. Having heard nothing definitive one way or another, I emailed last Tuesday to inquire, and was informed Wednesday morning that we had to be out of our offices by Thursday. (Which made me wonder: were they planning to tell us we needed to move out? What would've happened if I hadn't emailed?) To add to the difficulty, our ID cards stopped letting us into the building at midnight on July 1, which is the most efficient I've seen any college administrative program be with anything. The response to this problem was a rather muted, "well, can't do anything about it until Tuesday," which is frustrating, because the postdocs literally do come into the office every day to work. (This is surprising because up until the last week, the Program has been very on top of all logistical and administrative matters) Now, at least, I can get into the building.