(Unbelievable) Update on my "Miraculous" Library Situation

After I posted about my "miraculous" encounter with the library, Rich noted that such things only ever seem to happen to me.  Everyone—spouses, parents, readers, and co-panelists—agrees: I attract the absurd.

But sometimes I suspect people think I invent these absurd situations in order to drive up traffic.  Who else could [insert all that I've endured] in so short a time-frame?  To be frank: sometimes I think I make it all up.  So it doesn't hurt to have evidence my insanity's not imagined. 

Proof in point: this letter I received from the library today, scanned for your convenience:

Words fail me.

Comments

[Floyd]

Some trusty words never fail me in these situations. But also:

Oh no they didn't!

[Rich Puchalsky]

If they received $1,200,000 for the year, and $2,600 or so of that was your funds, then you personally contributed about 2% of their donations for the year. Perhaps there really weren't any donations of any other type; perhaps there are just 49 other students wandering around, thinking that this mixup will be fixed any day now.

My serious suggestion: have your lawyer friend write a letter to them. More humorously, you could ask to meet the library's development staff (or management in general), given that you're a major donor, and then explain to them that they're absconded with your money.

[Autumn Song]

I think I'd echo: 'Oh no they didn't!'

I think this sort of thing is designed to make you think twice about asking for your money back - it's gone to a good cause. Either that, or no one has heard anything you've said to them about it being fees money. I don't know which is worse...

Hope you get it sorted out.

[Mikhail Emelianov]

i think they are making you an offer you cannot refuse - i would stop trying to get your money back and pray that you don't wake up with a head of a horse in your bed. seriously, these people put you among their "friends and partners" and in bold as well - it's like saying: "hey, you're family now! family don't ask questions!"

[History Geek]

O_o

On one hand, you sort of have to admire their guts.

[SEK]

Floyd,

Oh Yes They Did! Ugh. The situation's due to resolve itself today, though, so there's comfort in that.

Rich,

That would be ... absolutely amazing if true, and sadly, I can actually imagine it being true, given the hoops I jumped through the past two weeks.

Autumn Song,

I think you're right: this was an automatic letter generated by some program within the vast university bureaucracy.

Mikhail,

But I was already family. Or close to it. After all, they let me borrow their books, and that's what friends and partners do, right? Did they really need $2,600 to prove my love?

History Geek,

Yes, and want to stomp on them.

[Gene]

Rich meant .2% not 2%, right? It's an awful and ridiculous situation, to be sure, but Scott isn't quite a 1/50th shareholder in the library yet...

[Rich Puchalsky]

Yeah, I slipped a digit. I suppose that it would be a bit too much to think of 499 other students in the same situation.

[Gene]

Probably, Rich, but I only meant to clarify the math. I still really liked--in a half-laughing, half-crying kind of way, of course, being a grad student myself--the basic conceit.

[THE LIBRARY]

This is what we like to call the "unintended donation" con. It works especially well with old people. Forget a wallet at the check-out desk, that's a donation. "Misplace" a purse, that's a donation. The thank you letters are a necessary formality because, after all, we're a respectable business.

Again, on behalf of the library system, thank you for your, ah, "generosity." Capish?

[Innogen]

hahaha...if only I didn't think you had actually cleverly doctored the dept's electronic letterhead to fake this...