Bureaucracy and the Beast
As part of my new year get super fit plan I've revived my 11 a-side football career and played 3 games in just over a week. Subsequently I fell asleep at 10 O'Clock for the first time in about 2 years last night. Another part of my get fit plan was to join a gym so me and jonny decided to join the Strathclyde University gym. Its only a £120 for the year from february so that seemed like a good price for a fairly well equipped facility. Little did I know that the discounted price takes into account the horrenduous University red-tape that you have to endure before they let you join. It went something along these lines:
We popped into the gym reception with our 2 printed out forms, 4 passport photos and £120 in cold hard currency. The VERY friendly (note: that's sarcasm) eldery tracksuited woman behind the counter informed us that we can't give her money but instead must go pay the University's cash office our £120 and then return brandishing our receipts. Not the most convenient methods of payment but if thems the rules then we decided to play along.
After 10 minutes of aimless wandering around Strathclyde's campus (and if anyone know's the college this involves walking up and down 45 degree hills) we asked a traffic warden if he could help us. This guy, seriously, nearly had a nose bleed trying to dig the requested info from his brain. No, I'm not messing, he closed his eyes and scrunched up his face and everything and then eventually came up with some directions. I was a bit scared to be honest but in all credit to him, his directions were spot on.
Our troubles didn't end their though. Try as we might to give the woman in the cash office our £120 she just wasn't having it. "You need to a number" she kept repeating. What number? From who? Why? The "From who" was apparently the accounts office but the nature of this number was never revealed. We strolled up to the adjoining accounts office, explained our need for a mystical number and low and behold they woman behind the counter was quite happy with this request and headed off to fetch us one! Whether this number was spewn forth from a positronic ticker tape machine or sent from the devil and transcibed onto a goat we'll never know but the woman did appear ten minutes later with ..........A NUMBER!!!
Armed with the number of power we were now able to easily give the University a combined £250. Our reward for handing over such fabulous wealth? A pink receipt the size of car door! This receipt was the gateway to gym freedom so we quickly ran to present it to the tracksuited troll at the gym reception.
You might have thought that was the end of the story but the woman was unable to process our applications at that time so we were sent away empty handed. I say empty handed but I do have a large pink receipt that is now doubling as a coffee table and has become a real fixture in the living room.
Oh yeah.....Celtic won 2-1 tonight...CIS Cup Final here we come!! (after Saturday's 3-3 draw tonights game was far from a foregone conclusion)
We popped into the gym reception with our 2 printed out forms, 4 passport photos and £120 in cold hard currency. The VERY friendly (note: that's sarcasm) eldery tracksuited woman behind the counter informed us that we can't give her money but instead must go pay the University's cash office our £120 and then return brandishing our receipts. Not the most convenient methods of payment but if thems the rules then we decided to play along.
After 10 minutes of aimless wandering around Strathclyde's campus (and if anyone know's the college this involves walking up and down 45 degree hills) we asked a traffic warden if he could help us. This guy, seriously, nearly had a nose bleed trying to dig the requested info from his brain. No, I'm not messing, he closed his eyes and scrunched up his face and everything and then eventually came up with some directions. I was a bit scared to be honest but in all credit to him, his directions were spot on.
Our troubles didn't end their though. Try as we might to give the woman in the cash office our £120 she just wasn't having it. "You need to a number" she kept repeating. What number? From who? Why? The "From who" was apparently the accounts office but the nature of this number was never revealed. We strolled up to the adjoining accounts office, explained our need for a mystical number and low and behold they woman behind the counter was quite happy with this request and headed off to fetch us one! Whether this number was spewn forth from a positronic ticker tape machine or sent from the devil and transcibed onto a goat we'll never know but the woman did appear ten minutes later with ..........A NUMBER!!!
Armed with the number of power we were now able to easily give the University a combined £250. Our reward for handing over such fabulous wealth? A pink receipt the size of car door! This receipt was the gateway to gym freedom so we quickly ran to present it to the tracksuited troll at the gym reception.
You might have thought that was the end of the story but the woman was unable to process our applications at that time so we were sent away empty handed. I say empty handed but I do have a large pink receipt that is now doubling as a coffee table and has become a real fixture in the living room.
Oh yeah.....Celtic won 2-1 tonight...CIS Cup Final here we come!! (after Saturday's 3-3 draw tonights game was far from a foregone conclusion)
<< Home