An Enemy at the Gate

Yesterday was a big day, although it didn't feel like it for the most part. The dissertation is entering its final stages, and I distributed drafts to each member of my thesis committee. The other big event was this:

WE HAVE A DEFENSE DATE!!!

Yes, the Day is approaching, and August 4, 2005 will be my final day as a graduate student.

In the meantime, I have some paperwork to submit to the graduate school office, and with that, I must deal with the guardian that lets me pass through that glorious gate that leads out of graduate school. Just for the sake of this narrative, we'll call said guardian 'Ellie'. Ellie's job description, I would predict, reads something like this:

Ellie, Registrar, Graduate Medical Sciences

• Directs the daily operations of the Registrar's Office.
• Recommends and participates in the development and implementation of university policies and procedures regarding student registration, records, etc.
• Develops and publishes major University information documents including, but not limited to, University Catalogs and class schedules.
• Creates a ridiculous number of forms, the purpose of which is to obfuscate the purpose of the Office of the Registrar.
• Depresses the morale of the graduate student body.

I'm not sure what it is, but Ellie seems to enjoy making students' lives rather difficult. It's like we walk in there to take care of whatever business is necessary, and she tries to pick a fight. The only way to deal with her combative attitude is take some sort of non-threatening posture and pray that you make it back outside with very little bleeding. Also, she'll usually force some other bureaucratic maneuver upon the student, requiring more running around obtaining more signatures. My task came as Ellie was checking to make sure that the list of thesis committee members I'd provided was legitimate. As if any student would try to pass off a fake committee member:

Ellie: Okay, I'm checking your thesis committee members with our list of approved faculty.
Mikey: Okay.
Ellie: Wait a minute. I don't know this person.
Mikey: He works in the Pulmonary Center, which is just down the hall from you.
Ellie: What?!
Mikey: Nothing.
Ellie: He's not on our list. You're going to have to fill out Special Form Number 624D then get it back to me attached with a copy of his CV. Until then, I'm not processing your thesis defense paperwork.
Mikey: Okay.

I didn't get the CV before the close of the business day, so I had to turn the special form in the next morning. And, of course, after double checking the graduate office database, another administrator found that this faculty member was indeed on their list. Ellie just either:

1. Hadn't updated her faculty database to the most recent version (if true, then she hasn't updated since 1999), or
2. She just gets a kick out of sending students out on inane little chores.

Me, I'm thinking it's #2.