just got off the phone with the financial aid office at my son's university. seems yours truly bobbled the ball on the "adding of the instructional institution" when it was decided he wanted to go back to college away from home.
note to self: important on the fafsa forms to click that little button that says "submit."
seems that today at 4:30 p.m. e.s.t. my son's classes will be dropped unless we come up with half of the tuition due, which is really not a lot by some college's standards, but a lot coming from a family of not such amazing means.
*sigh*
spoke to an amazing lady in the financial aid office who was tremendously (a) sympathetic to my plight and (b) helpful to my cause. she told me she was going to transfer me to one of the heads of the bursar's office.
i shuddered. i've worked for type-a attorneys in my life and i know how *heads of anythings* like to have their calls screened prior to talking to someone. i asked if this was "wise??"
she said, "if i transfer you to a clerk, you will get the same automated response i just gave you; why not go to the top and let the fall-out trickle as it may?"
is it any wonder why i liked her?
transferred and "sid" picked up on the first ring. within minutes, i assessed his level of disinterest, teetering on boredom. he started a bit of a diatribe by saying
"i don't know who transferred you to me, but we have protocol in this office and i am much too busy to answer calls such as this when we have [mere] clerks [sarcasm] to handle these types of calls."
oh, i'm sorry. did you just try to make me feel badly that i dared to talk to someone of your esteem? your caliber? instead of one of those pesky, lowly clerks who are apparently not capable enough to bring you a cup of coffee?
[volcanic below the surface, this irish lass was...]
to which i replied: "i know this isn't catastrophic to you and know you have much better things to do in your life than to sit on the phone with a panic-stricken parent who apparently doesn't know how to navigate herself around an internet form, but would you kindly bottom-line it for me as to what this college might consider doing for my son, who has been through enough already, i might add, by even applying back to go to the school he had to leave previously for his melanoma diagnosis?"
i played the *c* card. i was desperate, i had to. i believe his reaction was a long, drawn-out sigh.
"the requirement is half - can you put any of this on a credit card?"
"i don't have that kind of credit, sir..."
he sighed. again. i must be terribly exasperating.
"how about 40%?"
"no. i can do about one-third and that is really, really stretching it."
he made some comment about getting my credit card information and i said something snarky back about having assurances that my son's classes would not be dropped prior to my hanging up the phone. he assured me, i relented.
i have to run to the bank and make a deposit, lest my son be down on his luck...
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