Oh, the mind-numbing, skull-fucking irony of it.
Back in January, I started the application process to get into my then-future local state college and its esteemed School of Education in order to get my teaching credentials. For once, my procrastinating tendencies did not get the better of me, and I got all my paperwork in on time - applications, letters of recommendation, transcripts, tuberculosis test results, clearance forms for substitute teaching and student teaching, and so on.
Late in April, I actually started to relax, thinking that I had gotten everything done that I could and it was all a matter of waiting for the final notification. Then, two weeks before the decision was made, I received a standard “here’s what’s in your file” letter from the College of Ed.
No transcripts.
No letters of recommendation.
No letter of acceptence from the university.
No test results.
No clearance forms.
In fact, all they had was the form I’d filled out when I’d flown in to California for the in-person interview and a couple of standardized test results.
In a near panic, I called their office. Now, I know how to work with people on the phone. I did it for a living at the time. I know what puts people off (anger, desperation, confusion), so I was a perfect Miss Manners - evincing only the slightest curiousity about where all these items might be. It took three days of calling before they would even admit that they weren’t in the file. They must have been lost in the mail. Or I must not have remembered to send them in.
Now, bear in mind that there were at least eight different sources for all of this - myself, three letter writers, three different universities, and my doctor. I could see one, maybe as many as three, of these flaking out. But all of them?
Okay, fine. Whatever. It’s pointless to quibble now. I fork out over $50 to get my transcripts overnighted to them and beg my letter writers to please fax the forms and letters again. I call my doctor’s office and ask that they please refax the test results.
Then I start calling the education office to make sure those items get in. I am not sanguine about this. This is the next year of my life. It takes me five fucking days to get a response from the waste of skin in charge of applicant credentialing, and even then, she has an office lackey call me to confirm that everything made it in that time.
Okay, fine. Whatever. It’s all in, and I can relax. Less than a week later, I’m notified of my acceptance to the program, with a small note attached. Could I please provide proof that I’ve been accepted to the school itself. You know, the acceptance letter I’ve mailed two copies of and faxed twice as well. Fine. Whatever.
Last week, I arrive in California permanently. The very first business day, I go down to the school, get registration info, financial aid info, book info, and stop by the office to provide copies of everything yet again and check on what they’re still missing.
The first office assistant basically tells me “if we had to answer every request for file status, we’d never get anything done.” Yeah, but you know, if you hadn’t use my file to mop up the remnants of your squicked out frontal lobes, I wouldn’t be asking you, you brain stem, now would I? I smiled and thanked her sincerely.
When I returned to hand in the one form I’d never been given after four months of double checking, I introduce myself to the second office assistant, the one I recognized from six or seven genuinely laidback, Miss-Manners-mildly-curious-about-the-existence-of-my-file phone conversations.
“Hi, Office Lackey,” says I. “I’m phouka. I bugged you on the phone a whole lot. It’s awfully nice to meet you in person after you were so helpful to me.”
He got a deer-in-the-headlights look, and when the waste of skin applicant credentialing lady comes in, he introduces me to her as the “infamous phouka - the one who called so many times about her file” in a tone of voice that clearly indicated I had been the bane of his existence since he discovered his opposable thumbs could be used for something other than polishing his personal Maypole.
And these, fellow Pitizens, are the people with whom I am entrusting my professional future for the next year and beyond.
