My older son tells me that I don't suffer fools gladly. (I think he's referring more to himself than to me!) At present, however, I'm about to decide that there is a class of people who are more foolish than most, and I'm certainly irritated to the point of teeth grinding. That class of people is, I admit, overworked and underpaid, and they are blamed for far too much, but ahead of used-car sales people, ahead of any other worker group that I know of, I place low-level clerical people into the Irritating Fools category.
First irritation: I have given my book order information to three separate clerks: one is a very sweet secretary in the Lang and Lit office, whose job it is to pass on to the school bookstore; another is the person in charge of making sure online classes get their book information; and yet again, just this morning, is another at the off-campus bookstore where I'll be teaching one night class. It seems to me that one order form should suffice. It could be photocopied--now there's a radical idea!!--and copies sent to these other people. Or I could order online and cc everyone, if only I were told who else needed the information. My current school has a tendency to expect people to know things that they could not possibly know, as if each person alive, whether or not that person has ever encountered this school before, would know, for example, what certain acronyms mean, or where certain people work. It's kind of like my dear late father-in-law, who would give driving directions something like this: "Now when you get to where old Mr. Smith's farm used to be, back in the forties, you'll need to turn left."
The other irritation is the student loan exit counseling. I know I've done this once already, a few years ago when I naively thought I'd be finishing up. I haven't taken out loans in a few years, and I've been paying them back for some time, as well. But now that I've finished the degree, I get this demanding letter that I complete exit counseling, or else they'll withhold my transcripts. I already have an official transcript and have had official transcripts sent to at least two schools, so I'm not too worried about that. And if this department had been that worried, they wouldn't have mailed this letter on the date that I was to have completed the exit counseling. But, because esteemed spouse is worried that I will have difficulties in the future if all the i's aren't dotted, all the t's aren't crossed, and all the first-born children aren't sacrificed promptly at midnight on the first night of a full moon--well, maybe not that last one--I sat down with the paperwork. Three separate forms to fill out. All of them asking for the same privacy-violating information. All of them expecting me to have read and memorized the dull little booklets they've sent me. One of the forms has a line requesting my home telephone number with area code. The very next line requests--again--my home telephone number with area code. What, maybe it changed in those three seconds?!! Are you testing my memory, Student Loan Clerk? If I can remember my phone number twice in a row, does that make me more likely to remember to pay back my student loans? And what if I can't?!!!
Puh-leeze. News flash for the Student Loan Clerks: all graduates aren't 22 years old and living at home with Mom and Dad. You want my driver's license number, my social security number, my complete address and phone number (repeatedly), the name, address, and phone number of where I'm likely to be working (quick, let me check my horoscope for that one! Maybe the Magic 8 Ball has the answer!), AND the names, addresses, and phone numbers of people who know me well and who don't live with me. Shall I give you my sons' addresses? How about my AARP number? Blood type? Cholesterol numbers? Why don't I just have a little tag implanted in my ear and send you the tracking code for it?
Of course I will eventually succumb and fill out the idiotic forms. If I don't, then next time I need a transcript, I will be treated as if I were personally responsible for 9/11. But I will resent each and every second of my life that is wasted on filling out these stupid forms, and I will curse you, Foolish Clerk Person. May your life be like the movie Groundhog Day, where you have to fill out your Income Tax forms over and over and over--WHILE you wait in line to renew your driver's license! Grumpily and redundantly yours. Dr. S.
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