On Bureaucracy/Quality

1/15/2011

This was inevitably going to show up in my blog. It was sparked this time by my experience moving into a new room at my university. First, getting into the room was a nightmare. I had to see three different ‘officials’ who responsible for different things. One took my request and gave me the appropriate paperwork. Another actually found me the room to stay in and handled the key handover and such. Yet another took care of my deposit and rental stuff. They all work in the same office and sit not 5 feet from one another. However, there is NO overlap between what they can/are willing to do. And their two hour lunches and their daily two hour ‘meetings’ make it very difficult to track them all down and get it done. Next, setting up internet. Much of the same issues. There is a special office that specifically handles campus internet access. They arrive at the office at 9, ‘work’ until 11, then lunch until 1, then usually have a ‘meeting’ until about 3 or 4, then go home. So, you have a very small window of opportunity to get ahold of them. Next, quality. I moved into my room which was ‘new’. The building had just been finished 3 months ago and I was the first person to live in my room. Everything seemed ok, the room was small but had two desks and lots of efficient storage/closet space. Then, I discovered that the heater didn’t work, neither did the hot water heater. Since the room, as many places are, is extremely poorly insulated, I might as well have been sleeping outside. Through much haggling and office visits, I got my hot water heater fixed so I could get a bearable shower. The room heater still doesn’t work properly so I bought my own small space heater. Next, the door broke. HOW DOES THIS JUST HAPPEN???? It simple started coming off the hinges. So, I went to the building management and they referred me to yet another office b/c that wasn’t their responsibility. After a day of waiting in my room, the repairman finally showed up, jacked with my door for an hour and finally got it to stay on the hinges and close properly. I should stress that all along the way, there were 10+ different office visits to different ‘officials’ in order to get it taken care of. No word yet on my heater. This is all due to a bad combination of poor quality and overbearing bureaucracy. Rant finished.

***UPDATE*** (as of 1/22/2011): still no internet, they closed the office until the 3rd week of february. my head is going to explode...