Après le Paperwork Deluge
60 Months to the World | Feels so Far Away
If I could be said to hate anything in the world, I hate:
- Phone calls (especially initiating them!)
- Bureaucracy
- Paperwork
I know that the world is full of these things. But I feel like nothing in my life has prepared me for them. And the second that anybody mentions me having to deal with any of the three, I can feel my temper rise.
They’re so unnecessary in the modern world.
There is nothing I can do in a phone call that I can’t do in an email. And, in fact, the email might work better, because I won’t have to constantly yell “can you hear me!?” every other minute. I don’t have to sit there and spell out my email address fifteen times — “no, it’s ninja W-R-I-T-E-R-S.org, not NinjaRiders!”
And, email comes with the added bonus that I don’t feel like I’m bothering you. Too busy for my email right now? No problem, you can work on other things, and get back to it when you have time. And I don’t have to sit on hold for 45 minutes while you clear your plate of things.
Bureaucracy and paperwork go hand in hand. You can’t have bureaucracy without the paperwork, for one. And I find that there are so many redundancies, it makes me rip my hair out.
I got a message today from my bariatric surgeon’s office, which was exciting! They sent me a video to their orientation — which had a lot of great information about the different surgeries, and the benefits and risks of each one, as well as some notes about the process.
But they also had an information packet that they wanted me to fill out and email back.
This packet asked for my name 15 times, my home address thrice, my phone number thrice, my Social Security number twice, my Primary Care Physician’s name, address, and phone number twice, and so on and so forth.
What the fuck is the purpose of this? You need the information exactly once. And then you put it in your computer, and when you pull up the file on me, it’s right there. There’s no reason for me to write (or type) it out multiple times.
If this was just the one office, it would be one thing, but this seems like it happens everywhere! Each doctor’s office, dealing with insurance paperwork (which for some reason has to be separate from the medical paperwork), the DMV, the bank. Redundancy on top of redundancy on top of redundancy.
It’s enough to make you want to rip your hair out.
Not to mention the feeling that they scare you out of making mistakes. If you fill out this one piece of paperwork wrong, if you don’t remember this one thing, if you don’t have this one detail, then you’re going to be in some kind of vague, unspecified trouble, and not get the procedure/document/thing that you desperately need.
I wish I understood this feeling, or had some way of dealing with it. But it’s automatic, at this point. I know this stuff is important. I assume that there has to be some reason that they’re asking for it multiple times. I know that I need these services. But it feels like each time I go tête-à-tête with a bureaucracy, I’m playing David to their Goliath, and I’m afraid I’m going to be crushed.
Maybe I have really weird fears or frustrations or triggers. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just weird.
But I got that paperwork done, at least. Early next week, I’m going to have to face down my phone anxiety, and make an appointment for getting a sleep study. Soon, I’m going to get an appointment with the bariatric surgeon, and I’m going to have to go mano a mano with bureaucratic insurance nonsense.
It’s either going to happen or they’re going to tell me no. It’ll either work out, or I’ll manage to screw it up somehow. Odds are that everything will be fine, but I could really do without this irrational anxiety and nervousness that comes up whenever I have to deal with this stuff.
I’m also going to have to face another fear soon: setting up an appointment with a school counselor.
When I lived in Reno back in 2015, I attended the local community college. Took a full time course-load that Fall, and everything. I even enjoyed my classes.
Unfortunately, I was working at a job from Hell at that time.
The way I was scheduled, going to school was no problem. I’d get off work around 6 AM on weekdays, catch breakfast, and go to classes from 9–2-ish. Then I’d go home and sleep until it was time to get ready for work at 10.
Unfortunately, I had unreliable coworkers, who wouldn’t show up until 9–10 AM. And it was the kind of job where I couldn’t just leave when I was supposed to be off, lest I be hit with felony abandonment charges. I had to wait for someone to relieve me.
I burned out and dropped all of my classes that semester. I left Reno and moved back into my mother’s house that January.
However, I received a Pell Grant for that semester; financial aid that was desperately needed to augment my crap earnings from the job from Hell.
It turns out the Federal Government doesn’t like when you take full financial aid and drop out of everything halfway through the semester. It makes you look fraudy.
So, basically, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get a Pell Grant again.
However, in this case, I am perfectly willing to face down this bureaucratic monster. This morning on Twitter, I saw that the college was offering a Russian language class this Fall.
I’ve been wanting to learn Russian for a long time. It’ll come in helpful when I’m traveling the world. Not that I want to become buddy-buddy with Putin or anything, but it is the second most common language in Mongolia, which I’ve been dying to visit. (Good luck finding someone to teach you Mongolian stateside.)
I’ve been to a lot of community colleges, way more than any person should attend, and I’ve never seen Russian offered as a language. Never.
I want to do this, if it’s at all humanly possible. I don’t know that I want to go back to school full-time until after I have the surgery, but this is an opportunity that I don’t want to pass up. Even if I just add one more course and call myself a part-time student.
So wish me luck!
Come along with me!
Zach J. Payne writes poetry, plays, and fiction for young adults. He’s the #2 Ninja Writer, helping new writers find their voice and their tribe.You can find him on Twitter and MyFitnessPal.
If you’d like to support me in my writing, pitch toward my Bariatric Surgery fees ($590 out of pocket), or help in this adventure, you can buy something off of my wish list or contribute to my paypal.
