Bureaucratic Nightmare

I had one of those days where I couldn't do anything right. Many things went wrong, but suffice it to say that I realized I ordered my used copy of Hammer's German Grammar and Usage in German instead of English (i.e. all of the notes on how the language works are in German) and it just got worse from there. I was really excited to go to my math class, until I wandered into a bureaucratic nightmare.

It turns out, at this particular Community College, if you make a mistake on a form, you have to get an entirely new form and fill the whole thing out again, instead of just crossing it out and rewriting it. Perhaps there is some reason for it that I do not know, but this policy seems absolutely insane. Anyway, having a visual processing issue, I often mix up numbers and letters when I write them down. I reversed two of the numbers in one of the pieces on the form. So, I was told very snootily, that I had to go back and get a new "add form" and it was unlikely that I would be able to get into the class. Seriously? Anyway, I talked to the professor who was very nice and said he was happy to get me a new "add form" but this still does not explain the "no cross-outs" policy. Bureaucracy sucks.

Update 02/11/11: I woke up this morning (after sleeping in) and the world looked a little brighter. Even better, when I went down to check the mail for my math book (which has not yet arrived), I found that my German book arrived-- and it's in English! Apparently the words "German Edition" (I bought a cheap used copy) just meant that the book was a descriptive German grammar, and all of the explanations are in English. I breathed a sigh of relief and cackled gleefully at having purchased a perfectly clean used edition for less than a quarter of the new price.