Infrequent Nights

The administration staff at the CCLC (Center for Chinese Language and Culture) are quite possibly the rudest, most inept group of individuals I have ever had dealings with, and I've dealt with my fair share of rude ineptitude. As I've mentioned before, I like the school. The teachers are good. The facilities are nice. That said, dealing with the school on an administrative level is incredibly frustrating. I am not alone in my opionion. Just about every student has their own horror story of having to deal with the administration. Those who don't have horror stories stil have a marked distaste for the way they are treated by the office staff.

I am a scholarship student. This means every month the government of Taiwan pays me to study Chinese. If my marks fall below a certain level, or I miss too much class I do not receive my scholarship. Fair enough. Last month there was an error calculating my attendance at the CCLC office. As a result this month when I went to withdraw money from my bank account there was nothing there. You see they don't inform you if they are going to withhold your scholarship mnoney. They just do it. So students are treated to the nice surprise of having no money for a month, and wondering what the hell they're going to eat in the meantime.

Today I dealt with the mass of administration to get my problem solved. At first they told me there was pretty much nothing they could do. After a bunch of haggling, and going from office to office and desk to desk I sussed out my difficulties. I had my teacher from last term write a short note explaining that there had been an error and I had indeed been in class on the days they had me marked as absent. I again did the desk shuffle presenting my note to numerous individuals trying to get them to help me out. I finally got my records changed and went to the scholarship lady smiling with the proof that I had indeed been in class last month. She says "fine you'll get your money at the beginning of next month." Which means I essentially have to go three weeks without my money. Which means I'm looking forward to eating sawdust for a few weeks. I asked her why she couldn't get the money in sooner (they already have the money sitting in their account). To which she replied she has to wait for all the other students who have errors from last month's scholarships to sort out their problems so she can deal with them all at once. When I suggested to her that they start informing students when there is a problem regarding their scholarship before they withold the money she looked downright surprised, as if the thought had never crossed her mind. Her reply was that it was a good idea, but she wouldn't be able to do it. With that I was dismissed.