Ah, the wonders of bureaucracy...

Here is my story for today:

I am a freshman with enough credit from Advanced Placement exams to be a junior, but I only applied for sophomore standing. My university requires credits to be "claimed" or "petitioned for" by 5 pm to be processed on the next business day. Last Monday, after meeting with my adviser, I set out to hunt down and claim 38 hours of credit so as to obtain sophomore standing in time to bump my registration date for next semester's classes two days earlier. After completing the online form and paying the $152 it cost me to claim those credits (with AP test fees, that comes up to about $75 per class, but it's still cheaper than paying college tuition for them), I walked over to the Registration office to claim sophomore standing (because having those credits on your transcript just isn't enough for them, they just assume you want to stay in your class year), and found out that my credits hadn't shown up on my transcript yet. I assumed I had just shown up too early for them to have updated it, so I decided to come back the next day.

I walk into the office the next day, and am told my credits still aren't here. I am slightly upset, because time is a' wastin', but the better part of the week still remains, and besides, these kind of setbacks tend to happen to me.

Repeat the next day.

And day after next. The guy sitting in the registration office is starting to know me really well by now. I push the door, walk in. "[ID #]? No, your credits haven't come in yet."

On Friday, I become slightly nervous because the university closes down on weekends and I am supposed to register Monday. I go to the office once again, get the same response, but this time I walk out laughing because the employee has dressed us as a Mexican skeleton for Halloween, and it is slightly unsettling to speak to a black and white face in a Mexican hat about paperwork. He suggests I talk to people at the Place of People In Charge Of Your AP Grades (not the actual name, but I pay very little attention to such insignificant details as the names of various buildings and offices) (except for the Student Services Building, fucking SSB, I spend so much time in their various medical wards I should have a frequent-flyer card).

I let it go over the weekend, because there is nothing I can do, and I won't waste my Halloween worrying over what I can't do much about anyway.

Monday morning, that is, today, I run over to the Place of People In Charge Of Your AP Grades, where a very unhelpful clerk informs me to give them until Tuesday, 5 pm, to process my credits, and that, contrary to the information posted on their websites and provided to the advisers, it now takes an entire week to process credits, and the cutoff is Monday 1 am, not 5 pm. Well, I've got news for you, silly: If I wait until Tuesday, 5 pm, there will be not point to being a sophomore, as all the sophomores will have registered already.

Also, I found out that registration times aren't by alphabetical order and I get to be in the next-to-last slot anyway. For some reason, both the beginning and the end of the alphabet get to go before the middle. I wish my last name started with an A.

Moral of the story: Our registration system is complicated, convoluted, confusing, and anything but logical. Unfortunately, so is everything in this world. I suppose college really does prepare us for real life, then...