"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

today is incompetent day
April 16, 2003 - 5:12 pm

what's it mean you ask? well, i'm going to run with definiton 3, as offered by www.dictionary.com:

Devoid of those qualities requisite for effective conduct or action.

yes, no effective conduct or action will be referred to in today's posting. so on with sharing my annoyance...

as i think i mentioned the other day, it appears that with my 'acceptance' packet from odu, they neglected to include anything regarding housing. in a rare flash forethought, i contacted the housing folks. damn good thing i did. i need to have my forms in, which i don't have yet, by May 1st - 14 days or so and counting. without housing..i'm fucked, no?

so that's incompetence number 1 - new students need housing and it would be effective to notify me in my 'packet of information' that i need to contact the housing folks.

also not found in the packet was anything regarding financial aid. i dunno about anyone else going to grad school, but how much money i qualify for matters a great fucking deal. so today i emailed the financial aid folks, fearing that it was going to be like the housing folks and i had to initiate everything.

i was right. the first reply was 'could you verify your ssn? i can't seem to find you..' typos happen, so i wasn't too worried. i know it put odu down on the FAFSA site and filled out all those forms, so odu must have my info, right?

well, that's still in debate. i verified my ssn and was told before i could get any sort of financial aid announcement i had to fill out this domicle form. this is the first time i've heard of such form.

apperantly those who qualify as in-state have to prove it, which is fine with me. i'm 100% out-of-state. i'm told the form is at the 'office of registration' page. after much searching i find the page and the form. well the link to the form. actaully, the broken link to the form, but i read through the info on the page and see that appears to be the only thin the form is used for. i send off an email indicating that the link appears to be broken state i am without a doubt NOT qualified for anything in-state.. do i still need to fill out the form?

that's still pending.. as i won't hear back until tommorrow.

so that's incompetence number 2 and 3. again, as a new student why no refernce to financial aid in my packet? other schools include that.. i know this. i've gotten the packets with financial aid AND housing - talk about saving money! just one mailing, not three! then i get the name of an office that isn't easily nagivated to off the homepage.. why not just email me the exact link? i bet the directions are given out pretty darn often.. better still why not have the form as a pdf file you can email to folks? i'd be happy to print and fax it back!

what else.. oh, i get home and open my mail. in it is a letter from my healthcare company showing that my backquack visits are not fully covered. they arn't billing me, just notifying me as to how much was charged, what they covered and what i owe directly to the provider.

i'm pretty damn annoyed. if this guy was covered and inplan was the first thing i asked him. he said he was in the process of getting approved and not to worry about it. so i called him up, as that was nearly two months ago and told him what i got.

i wasn't rude or overly confrontational, but i suppose that i was annoyed was easy to hear in my voice. he sounded a just a tad defensive and hasitly explained he's still 'in process' and not to worry. he said his office will never send me a bill. if he keeps his word on that, i'm fine with it. i documented the call on the bill.

documentation is good.

so that's number four. why the fuck wouldn't he tell me i'm going to get this statement, surely i'm not the first person to call him. why not tell me it's coming and to disregard it?

ugh. let's not get started on things that actually happened while i was at work. this is long enough.

no wait, one thing from work. a co-worker told our boss that she has concerns about me, that she was worried i might be trying to do her job. my boss conveyed this to me and i was confused. i asked for an example as to what i did to step into her 'sphere of responsibility' and my boss said she didn't know - no example was given. but my boss asked the co-worker to commumicate with me on the issue via email so that we can work out in writing whatever issue she has.

i'm all for that idea. if i'm stepping on someones toes, they should tell me. there's only 20 some folks in the whole company.. so communication shouldn't be an issue. she should be able to say 'hey, i saw you did x, y and z and i just want you to know that i do those things, so you don't have to.' i mean, it's not like i'm trying to steal work... i want to do as little as possible.

i sit about...20 feet? mebbe 30ft from this person. we talk several times a week on various issues.. so why not bring this up to me? why tell our boss? why not tell my supervisorr, who can then address things with me?

i dunno. my boss made the same point. she should have come and talked to me about it, which was my my boss told her to email me with whatever it is that i've done.

why am i annoyed? give a fucking example. what good does it do to say i have an issue with someone, but then not offer an example? no good whatsoever. if i had been in smartass mode, i'd have replied to my boss that i have an issue with people having issues with me, but not actaully defining the issue. how can i learn/modify/correct without knowing?

blah.

it's incompetent to bitch about someone, but not offer up an example.