ever_failing (ever_failing) wrote in bad_service,
ever_failing
ever_failing
bad_service

  • Mood:
  • Music:

Student housing woes

emptyobsidian's post reminded of my own story of (student) housing woes, so here it goes. :)

I applied to study psychology last year, and because psychology is one of the most wanted majors here in Germany, one does not apply to the universities directly, but to a central placement authority (ZVS, if you've heard of it). That process in itself is the height of bureaucracy, but alas, it is not the point of this story. It is relevant, though, because due to the extremely bureaucratic application / placement process, it happens very frequently that people get in in the second or third of even fourth round of assigning people to schools, and of course that means that those people will receive VERY short notice of having scored a place. (I know, it's complicated. Sorry, I tried.)

Of course, that's exactly what happened to me. On October 18th, 2005, I got a letter telling me that I was accepted at Johannes-Gutenberg University in Mainz. I live roughly 250km from that city, which is quite far for German standards. And the semester was going to start on October 31st. Naturally, I panicked because as in all (German) college towns, student housing is very, VERY limited in Mainz and the rent index is VERY high. So imagine my surprise, relief and complete delight when I called Student Housing the next morning and was told that they had a room in one of the campus-based dorms for me.

They told me to fax in the most important paperwork immediately and send the rest via regular mail, which of course I immediately took care of (within the hour, in fact). They also told me that I would receive the lease paperwork in the mail. Bliss. So I waited. And waited. And waited. After a week, I got really worried and decided to call again (the third time, actually).



Here's how the call went:

Me: Hello, (blabla), I was told that I could get a room in $dorm, and I haven't received the lease yet.

SH: ... Hold please.

(10 minutes of rustling paper, muffled voices, etc.)

SH (accusatory): Who told you there was a room available?!
Me: Oh, I'm sorry, I do not remember their names, but I was told by two of your colleagues, on seperate occasions, on day x and day y.. I faxed my paperwork in the same day and sent the proper application by mail the same day, too, as I was told to.

SH: Well, we don't have any record of that.

Me: O_O

SH: ... And there are no rooms available. Why would you think you'd get a room right away, anyway?! We have a one semester waiting period for all students!!

Me: :o Oh, gosh, I did not know that... I was told I could get a room and to send in my paperwork, so I did and, ... What am I going to do now? (At that point, I thoroughly embarrassed myself by starting to cry. The stress of the whole moving-away-for-college-within-two-weeks was just too much at that point...)

SH: Well, ... (rustling of more paper), I'll see what I can do and call you back.


They eventually found me a tiny temporary "guest room", at least something to sleep in for the first few weeks. I later got extremely lucky (the girl that lived in the room I'm now staying in very suddenly decided to move out), and they bumped me up to the list because they "knew my story", as they told my now-roommate. "KNEW my story"? More like CAUSED my "story"!!
Subscribe

  • Silly Sprint people

    I want to change to sprint so I contacted them via phone. Here’s what happened and why Them: you can join for 200.00 Me: that’s a lot of money your…

  • (no subject)

    Well,  I unofficially long my last non - grapevine tested  and advice from Facebook nurses and things.  Add it id's , it is. I'm going to harshly…

  • HOA Woes

    So I live in an HOA. Back in December, our mailbox was hit twice and we had to fix it to the tune of $150 because our HOA use uniform mailboxes. In…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Comments allowed for members only

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 19 comments

  • Silly Sprint people

    I want to change to sprint so I contacted them via phone. Here’s what happened and why Them: you can join for 200.00 Me: that’s a lot of money your…

  • (no subject)

    Well,  I unofficially long my last non - grapevine tested  and advice from Facebook nurses and things.  Add it id's , it is. I'm going to harshly…

  • HOA Woes

    So I live in an HOA. Back in December, our mailbox was hit twice and we had to fix it to the tune of $150 because our HOA use uniform mailboxes. In…