Why Am I Not Surprised

Last term I went through a ridiculous series of Kafkan experiences with PSU, which involved (but was not limited to) being overcharged several times for services I never got, not receiving my financial aid due to clerical errors, lost pay checks (every single pay period, this term), bureaucratic policies that contradict other bureaucratic policies which make certain necesities impossible to accomplish, and a number of other lame problems that exist because people do not want to talk in person, nor do they want to deal with actual cash money.

I thought that Credit, combined with a lack of communication, caused this economic crisis in the first place. But, apparently, that hasn't gotten back to Corporate America yet.

My most recent frustration came in the form of an e-mail I got today, explaining that I could have received my Financial Aid check already if I had only explained to the dispersion company how I wanted to receive said check. (I shit you not: "We have a check for you, how do you want it?")

I called PSU and explained that since I started going to school four years ago, I have always received a check, and can't understand why they suddenly don't know that. PSU passed the buck, saying that they don't have access to their own students' Financial Aid information (!), but that the dispersion company does. (Why PSU doesn't have access to their own students records is only a small part of my confusion regarding this issue.)

After calling the dispersion company, I discovered that because they made a clerical error last term, and since I complained about not getting my check because of their error, they actually reset my account entirely to avoid making the same mistake twice. Rather than contact me and ask me how I'd like to get my money, they waited for the computer to catch the mistake as it was processing my refund, and they waited even longer for said computer to e-mail me, which in turn asked me to contact the dispersion company to set things straight. A mistake, I should point out, consisting of a several-tiered error THEY made.

Yeah. I'm sort of incredulous, too.

All of my attempts to point out how silly this was were met with complete confusion by the people I talked to on the phone. "What do you mean?" I mean, I said, how can someone who works in a job like this actually think this is a reasonable way to conduct business.

"Oh, I don't think about that stuff."

Right. Wasn't that the problem in the first place?