bureaucracy horror stories

[Dot]

do you have any? They're funny in retrospect sometimes.


Someone I know had his financial aid canceled this semester for no reason, and the financial aid office doesn't understand words, logic, etc-- they probably didn't even look into the issue-- so he's going to take a temporary leave.
I had a similar issue recently (they got confused because I withdrew from some of my classes):

Email 1

Ms [Me]

Thanks for the email. I have reviewed your account. Federal and University regulations require that students remain fulltime for the entire semester to retain their financial aid. There is an appeal process, you should submit an email from your [university] email account to [email] asking that you be able to keep some of your financial aid for the fall semester despite not being fulltime

One additional note: You will also have to submit an appeal after the Spring semester is over in order to receive your aid for the following school year

I apologize for the confusion and the additional requirements.

Email 2 (a few days later)

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for contacting [Financial Aid Office]. Our office has reviewed your file and you are eligible to receive your full Fall 2013 financial aid award. There was a technical glitch that cancelled your Fall 2013 financial aid award. Please allow 24-48 hours for our office to fix the issue in your file and to award your Fall 2013 financial aid award. Should you have any additional questions, please contact our office at [email].

Thank You,

[99Problems]

I forgot to pay a parking ticket in a state that would eventually revoke your license for them. Got pulled over and license was revoked, got another one 6 months later, then another one. Got drivers license back 10 years later. True story

[Dot]

I forgot to pay a parking ticket in a state that would eventually revoke your license for them. Got pulled over and license was revoked, got another one 6 months later, then another one. Got drivers license back 10 years later. True story

[gator]

Given that I'm in the process of emigrating I sure hope I won't have any stories for you over the next several months/years/rest of my life, but pretty much everyone I know who has moved to a different country has a bureaucracy horror story of some kind. Maybe I'll be different?

[Osito Polar]

Given that I'm in the process of emigrating I sure hope I won't have any stories for you over the next several months/years/rest of my life, but pretty much everyone I know who has moved to a different country has a bureaucracy horror story of some kind. Maybe I'll be different?

God help you. Emigrating to the USA is horrible and extremely time-consuming for most people. A friend of mine gave up and just became an illegal alien/college student for three years. He missed a deadline and they told him he had to go back to Russia to refile his paperwork. He was all like "Fuck that! I will just hide." and as far as I know, no one ever came looking for him or anything. He just lived in a campus apartment and went to classes.

[gator]

So did the runaround on the visas and immigration site for a couple weeks, trying to locate the correct form for the visa I want to apply for. It kept telling me that I should complete an application form online, but none of the "Apply Online" links worked. I finally found the online application form that I needed, began to fill it out, pressed save and got a message that said sorry, you can't submit this form if you're in Canada. Print out this form and send it by courier instead.

Okay, so I printed out the form and started filling it out. Except it turned out to not be the same form as I was completing online. I was doing fine until I got to the point where it asked me for my UK address and mobile number. I don't have those yet because I haven't received a visa yet and the visa and immigration website says it is strongly recommended that one should wait until they have a visa before making travel and settlement plans.

Great. So which form do I fill out and how do I submit it? Who the fuck knows. Where do I go for help? There's no contact information or email address listed anywhere.

But one day I stumbled upon a page I hadn't found before - with a form that I could download that looked current and correct. I was also able to start filling it out online. Success! I saved my progress to my account.

I returned to the site today to finish filling out my application only to find that the site looked different and my login information didn't work. I tried to recover my password with no success. I got frustrated and created a new account. Once logged in there was a notification that they'd just launched a new site and none of the previous information supplied by users is saved there. So I have to restart my application or something.

[gator]

I went to book an appointment at the visa application centre. There were two locations listed that I could book appointments at, so I chose one. I went to the next screen only to find that this particular application centre will be closing down as of sometime next week. So I went back to try and choose the other one, but my first choice stuck. There was no way to change it. The system thinks my appointment is already booked and won't let me change it or book another.

I contacted the powers that be for help with regards to my application and was told that I'd just have to submit a brand new application, because my old one can't be fixed. Fuck.

The new visa application centre location doesn't open until tomorrow. It's so new that there's no information about it on it's website. Maybe I should wait a couple weeks...

[Aurast]

For medical reasons I went on a strict diet near the beginning of one semester. There was a mealplan change deadline and I wanted to find out if I could get by on cafeteria food or not and then decide whether to cancel my mealplan. I couldn't, so I decided to cancel my mealplan. Well it ends up that the "mealplan change deadline" and "mealplan cancellation deadline" are too different things, go figure. I had missed the cancellation deadline by two days. I submitted a cancellation request anyway and they told me they wouldn't accept it but I could apply for a waiver if I wanted. They tried to scare me out of that idea by making it sound epic bureaucratic. Apparently there's a "waiver committee" and I would have to "stand before the committee", their words. The picture they painted was one of me in a dark room in front of a semicircular table occupied by a bunch of shadowy figures barking out difficult questions.

There was none of that but I did have to get a doctor's note, write an essay, fill out some obnoxious paperwork, and wait four months. Then I got refunded retroactively.

[Spartan26]

do you have any?

Too many too explain. Just follow me to work one day. What sux is they hired some ISTJ director about a year and a half ago and he's going around implementing more procedures where there are none. Any attempt to bypass a new procedure would result in him crying to senior mgmt. It's like dude, really, pick your battles or grow a spine. Have some self respect for not crying for your SVP mommy all the time.

[mondschein]

I was a voluntary researcher at my university for a year. I wrote articles, gave speeches, participated in seminars. I went back there to get a certificate and they have no record whatsoever of me being part of that research project, as if it never happened. Apparently I forgot to give them a copy of my IDs, and so I wasn't officially a voluntary researcher.