Bureaucracy Burns Calories

At my university you can get more exercise trying to pay for Campus Recreation than you can working out there.

They've got the bureaucracy tuned so perfectly at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that you actually need to fill out a form to get permission to pay certain bills. They'll usually bleed you to a nice desiccated husk without your even asking, so my four-office runaround today came as quite the surprise.

But in wearing the rubber off my shoes trudging from Campus Rec to Student Accounts to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs to the Bursar to the Student Union and back to the Bursar, I learned a valuable lesson: Big stage smiles equals pleasant (if not especially quick) customer service. (By the way, who came up with "bursar"? The same guy who's got us driving on parkways and parking on driveways?)

About every third time I'd go to Campus Rec to scale the 37-foot climbing wall, they'd stop me and tell me my membership was expired. There must be some mistake, they'd say, so fill out this little orange form and we'll let you in. Dutifully, I filled the little bugger out. Four times. Finally, these extra minutes spent on the ground so close to gravity's smothering embrace got to be too much for me. I visited the Campus Rec administration office during their oh-so-convenient extended Tuesday hours. (This grad student has a day job.)

The nice young woman behind the desk gave me Puzzled Look #1 of 5 as I tried to explain my predicament. Finally, with the help of her supervisor (inexplicably still wearing a tie at 6:30 p.m.), she determined that I needed to pay the Campus Recreation fee. Glancing suggestively at the credit-card machine by her right elbow, I inquired as to whether I could give her money right then and there. Oh no, she intoned. You'll have to go to Student Accounts and fill out a form.

Dutifully, I trudged over to the Canfield Adminstration Building, conveniently located on the other end of campus and laid out like one of those hospitals that's difficult to navigate because of all the poorly planned expansions -- only more so. Luckily, the Student Accounts office was right where I'd left it oh so many moons ago during my sullen and big-stage-smile-less undergrad days.

The nice old woman behind the desk gave me Puzzled Look #3 of 5 as I tried to explain my predicament. Finally, with the help of her supervisor (who seemed to peer at me piercingly from behind his U.S. 3rd Fleet battleship of a desk), she determined that I needed to visit the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs's office, all the way at the other end of the other end of the building. (That's not a typo. Those were my directions.)

Dutifully, I trudged over to the Vice Chancellor's Office, which was actually quite easy to find with its ornate double doors and really big sign. The nice really young woman -- who had either not gained or worked off the Freshman 15 (both links dailynebraskan.com) -- gave me Puzzled Look #2 of 5 as I tried to explain my predicament. Finally, with the help of her supervisor (whom she had to wait in line to consult), she determined that her supervisor would best be able to help me. Wait just a moment, please.

Dutifully, I waited. Briefly, it turned out, before getting help from a truly delightful lady whose name I wish I'd retained. She helped me fill out my form and chuckled politely at my attempts to joke about the irony in having to get permission to pay a bill.

Having received a bit of cheer I fairly skipped over to the Bursar, where after waiting in line I received Puzzled Look #4 of 5, which took me a bit by surprise as I had what struck me as a fairly well-written note from the Vice Chancellor's Office explaining why I had permission to give them money. Turns out the nice lady all the way at the other end of the other end of the building had neglected to write out the exact amount I owed.

But they figured it out fairly expeditiously and, with success so close I could smell it, I whipped out my credit card.

We don't take plastic here anymore. Budget cuts.

I resumed trudging mode for the relatively short journey to the student union and the four-deep line in front of the cash machine. My 120 bucks and I made it back to the Bursar in one piece, where a different cashier gave me Puzzled Look #5 of 5. After allowing me plenty of time to silently ponder why their life-size cardboard cutout of The Rock had a pair of cotton shorts affixed to it in just such a way that it looked like he was doing something naughty with his hands, the cashier handed me my receipt (after asking her supervisor which of the four carbon copies to give me).

I felt 10 pounds lighter and cheery as could be. Bureaucracy burns calories.