bureaucracy

Wikipedia defines the noun, Bureaucracy, as

a concept in sociology and political science referring to the way that the administrative execution and enforcement of legal rules are socially organized. This office organization is characterized by standardized procedure (rule-following), formal division of responsibility, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships.

I encountered a serious dose of this poisonous crap this Friday. I am the president of a student group at UWM called the Electronic Music Coalition. I was rightly chosen as the President because I actually go out and do work for the group to get things done. In order to ask for funding from the all powerful Student Association Committee (SAC), one must submit some standard paperwork including justification for all expenses and of course there needs to be eight copies of every piece of paper for the eight members of the committee. The hardest part about this is the dates - all of our funding requests for Fall had to be turned in this last Friday before 3:00pm. So being the procrastinator that I am I was laboring furiously in the computer lab at quarter to three, I printed everything I needed for the various requests I had and sprinted over to the copy center to make all of the copies for the not-quite-into-conservation-enough-to-share-some-paperwork committee, despite the jovial reminder to "Save A Tree" on the front page of the requests forms.

Now I knew I was cutting it close so I even ditched the last grant request at the copy center, knowing in the back of my head that I was way too close to the deadline already. So I smashed together what I hadn't been able to staple yet into a big ol' pile and ran, ran up the stairs to the third floor, passing other back-slapping members of different student groups on my way who shouted good luck and other nonsense as I sprinted past. I make it to the office and yank on the handle to find...

they had locked the door

They all see me standing outside the window with my pleading look but no one makes a move to open the door for me, even though I was there an hour earlier asking about what I needed to have done and it was QUITE obvious that I just needed to pass along my paperwork as every other group has done up to this point. Luckily someone else in the office had to leave so they opened the door for me and I walk in feeling nervous and triumphant and confused at the same time. Now here is the part where the loving, friendly young woman who works at the Student Organization RESOURCE center looks at me and says,


"Sorry, too late"

Now I don't remember exactly how the conversation went because all I could think of was this:

But basically my argument went something like:

PLEASE I JUST WORKED FOR HOURS AND SPENT TEN DOLLARS ON COPIES JUST TO GET THESE HERE FOR MY ENTIRE GROUPS SAKE AND TURNING ME AWAY WILL CAUSE HUGE AMOUNTS OF DEPRESSION AND AGONY

and her argument went:

despite the fact that I am the one who actually places the stamp on the paper, because of the big hand moving around this circle on my office wall a full 360 degrees before you got here, it really means that if I actually let you slide and accepted your requests I would get fired, stabbed, raped, and all my relatives would get cancer, maybe next semester!

Of course the proper words for tackling someone of such agonizing single mindedness failed me at the time, but if I could travel back to that point I would point out to her that WE AREN'T MACHINES YOU STUPID BITCH!

Maybe if we lived in a binary universe where all of our decisions were based on a 1 and a 0 this kind of encounter would make sense. But are we not men? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Do we not have rational thought processes that are capable of deciding when the rules are able to get bent by an extra thirty seconds of time?

This is the type of blunt trauma to the spirit that has the potential to discourage and disillusion someone entirely from trying to work within the system. Who knows? Maybe this is my wake-up call that is really telling me I should be out promoting concerts on my own and not trying to give the university a say or a cut. Don't get me wrong, I will certainly appeal this load of bull (and would appreciate any advice towards this end) but only time will tell, as is often the case, so stay tuned for some more belligerent updates.