(This post is inspired by my sincere desire to answer adjunct whore's question and the not-undeserved-ribbing I took at an another online locale when they learned of my latest run-in with absurdity.)
In the year 2004, SEK was diagnosed with cancer. Being an idiot, he decided to hide his cancer from everyone—his wife, his parents, his friends, his advisor. After four brutal (but successful) months of chemo, he outed himself as a "cancer survivor" and everyone was mad at him—his wife, his parents, his friends, his advisor. SEK was mad too.
Mad at the world.
So he started a blog about random shit to outlet The Anger he couldn't control. (His body had turned against him cellularly. SEK felt betrayed. "You are my body!" he said, shrugging his shoulders.) Venting felt good. It relieved his incomprehensible rage ... until the morning of November 30, 2005, when he walked in on two undergraduates bumping nasties in his office. For it was on that morning SEK's Fate revealed itself to him:
"You are to be the blogger to whom everything improbable will happen," Fate said. "Except unlike all those liars out there, my deeds will be documented in Official Campus Records and Police Reports."
"You're upset because I beat your cancer," boasted SEK. "Now I'll beat you."
SEK continued living his uneventful life. He garnered mild acclaim for purportedly hilarious posts and experimental shit of no merit.
Life was sweet.
Then Fate struck like lightning in the guise of the Troll of Sorrow. The deranged military sharpshooter/analytic philosophy-fiend threatened SEK with legal action (for plagiary? really?) and his wife's life. (The latter threat he took seriously.)
It was distressing, but Fate hadn't fazed him. So it sent a Honda Civic to do its dirt. That hurt—as did the six months of rehab—but SEK survived.
Now Fate was really upset. "Cancer couldn't kill him, civics neither," bemoaned Fate. "Marine sharpshooters and horny undergrads couldn't slow him down. If I can't kill SEK himself," Fate thought, "the least I can do is kill his career."
"Casper," Fate cried, "I need you to teach this fool a lesson. Read this reasonable post he wrote, and attack Attack ATTACK!" And so Casper attacked, with the aid of his friend, (the ostensibly liberal, but in fact fascist) Jesus' General. (Who, when you think about it, is "funny" in the same way Bill Hicks is, i.e. because you agree with him. Unless you like your jokes ideologically flattering and ungrudgingly predictable ... which SEK doesn't.)
Try as Casper might—to this day—Fate's accomplice could no more harm SEK than his master. So Fate tried one last scheme.
"Why didn't I think of this before? SEK loves books! Why not use the Library against him?" This time, he was successful. The Library stole all SEK's money, gave it back, honored him for his generous donation, then expelled him ... two days after he'd paid his filing fees and two days before his yearly checkup with his oncologist.
Fortunately the X-rays, MRIs, probes and attendant bloodwork wouldn't cost SEK a dime ... if he had health insurance, which he currently doesn't. (Because he's not a grad student anymore.) Things may look up tomorrow, but for tonight, SEK concedes victory to Fate.
"I have been bested," SEK said. "Commence my hilarious penance."
(And an update.)
I feel somewhat responsible for this justificatory review of your life's misery. Wasn't my own Andrew Morris-esque biography enough? You had to go all auto on me? Are you humming the god awful "My Way" to yourself right now?
I imagine it was either cathartic to reflect on the ton of crap your non-loving god visited upon your head, or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it just sucked all over again.
In any case, I've always believed you (even if the people I tell about you don't), have always been on your side (it is lonely on this side, I look over and there are like tons of people against you), and will always try to corral the legal blawgosphere to your aid--because you seem to need it!
Posted by: Belle Lettre | Tuesday, 11 December 2007 at 10:58 PM
I don't know. I agree with pedestrian right-of-way laws and am against smoking, but I find Hicks extremely funny on those grounds. I actually think he's much less predictable and pandering than a lot of political comedians, for instance, Margaret Cho.
Posted by: tomemos | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 12:47 AM
You didn't tell anyone about your cancer while it was going on? How the hell did you hide chemo from your wife? (I could see why they might be mad.)
Hmm, any way you could go to your checkup regardless? (Tell them you hadn't heard about the drop yet ...come on, you're tangling with a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies are slow. Right hand doesn't know etc. etc. You should be able to do some dodging and running to get around this somehow...?)
Posted by: Sisyphus | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 01:02 AM
I'm thinking that there should be some kind of special medal for dealing with bureaucratic fuckwittery of this magnitude . . . .
Posted by: Ancrene Wiseass | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 01:50 AM
:(
No more words.
Posted by: Naadir Jeewa | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 02:23 AM
I'm asking the blawgosphere about any legal claims you might have, per Timothy Burke's suggestion. I am not sure what you can do. I'm not a real lawyer after all, only a grad student with a J.D.
Plus, as an employment discrimination/sociology of law scholar, my work is ferreting out and arguing for legal correctives to illegal discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, age, disability, and national origin (and sexual orientation, if I have anything to do with it). That the university seems to hate you and mistreat for none of those things, but merely that you are Scott Eric Kaufman (that's enough, I guess)--well, that I can't help you with.
Posted by: Belle Lettre | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 02:41 AM
Belle (and Burke), the last thing that SEK needs, in my opinion, is to sue. What he needs is a lawyer to send politely worded inquiry letters on a lawyer's stationary. I mean, the purpose is to gently motivate people to fix the problem, not to embroil Scott in years-long legal proceedings.
Scott, do not let yourself go off of health insurance. There should be no way in which you can be dropped so quickly. Go on COBRA if you have to, but first talk to someone who actually knows about this kind of thing. I would guess that you may be able to, if nothing else, get tthe university to approve keeping you on health insurance for six months or something for free, since it was their screwup.
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 06:53 AM
I think that's what would help, Rich, you're right. I guess I'm just so stunned that this wasn't basically fixed quickly. The fact that the library thanked him for his donation is frankly something that would tempt me to violence were I Scott.
I wonder if it would help to throw a blogospheric shit fit aimed at Irvine or some subunit thereof.
Posted by: Timothy Burke | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 07:07 AM
It's been my experience (yeah, I know, generalizing from one data point works really well) that the purpose of having a lawyer in situations like this is as a signaling method that tells people that you are middle class and that therefore they can't simply roll over you. Which they will otherwise try to do.
An example: a thief stole a check from my wife's pocketbook while we were at the hospital for her to have our first child. The thief wrote themselves a check for $4,500, with an illegible scrawl on the line that indicated to whom it was made out to, and must have had it cashed at a check cashing place. Luckily I noticed this on the next bank statement (we were rather busy at the time) and reported it to the bank. A bank manager then tried to tell me that it was my problem and I was out of luck. This despite the existence of a law which says that the bank has to reimburse you in these cases if you bring it to their attention within a specified period of time, which I had done.
When they said that I was out of luck, I had a friendly lawyer send in a letter bringing the law to their attention and requesting a meeting with their representative. Soon after that, the money was back in my bank account, which I promptly cleaned out and moved to another bank. But without the letter, they would have brazened it out.
I would guess that this is a similar kind of case. The first option for them is to hope that you're so poor that you will just sort of blow away, and the problem will be solved. Once they realize that's not going to happen, they can actually fix it fairly easily. Past that, attempts to punish them have to be carefully calibrated on the scale of how much they really cost you vs. how much good they're going to do in changing the system. Unless you think that your university's behavior can and should be changed in similar cases as a public service, your priority is getting out with minimal effort, it seems to me.
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 09:10 AM
i am sure that simple human mistakes can be reversed graciously
you'll survive
good luck!
Posted by: read | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 09:20 AM
Link (since Btfsplk is so hard to Google.)
Image
What was your role in the Katrina business? Could you stop by and visit Dick Cheney for us?
Posted by: John Emerson | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 10:22 AM
i am sure that simple human mistakes can be reversed graciously
you'll survive
good luck!
Optimism bot. Not a reliable source of predictions about the future. This particular fortune cooky is unreliable.
Posted by: John Emerson | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 10:29 AM
I am not a real lawyer, so I always tell people the litigation process is the last resort, but if you want support that you might have a contractual claim, go to my blog.
That said, I am all for your dean exercising some muscle to get the right people in the bureaucracy to fix this.
Posted by: Belle Lettre | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 11:13 AM
Hey, I don't like things happening when I am not watching my children???? I believe that you will overcome yet another obstacle to reach your goal and you will be a better person for it; BUT, enough is enough. While I am still upset about the cancer thing and so is your wife and dad, I am guarding your back and you know we will do whatever we can for you. Just find a nice lawyer and send a nice letter and see what happens. DON'T LET THIS TAKE YOUR FOCUS AWAY FROM YOUR SOON TO COME JOB SEARCH AND YOUR PAPER YOU WILL PRESENT OVER THE HOLIDAYS. No matter how old you get I am still doing my mom thing just as if you were forever 2.
Posted by: mom | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 11:28 AM
Rich's comment makes me wonder if there's some way you can get the bank involved, since UCI misappropriated your funds. Then you get the money back, pay the fees, everyone wins.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 11:38 AM
You have a wonderful mom, SEK.
Posted by: jake | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 11:48 AM
thanks for giving me the lowdown on your down-low. i'm overwhelmed by my own crisis at the moment but i'll respond briefly:
a) how can you be expelled for library fines? i never should have graduated, in this case;
b) i too can hardly believe that you hid cancer from your family--are you still married? i mean, wow (i am, of course, thrilled to hear you survived and apologize for what must have been an extremely traumatic and isolating experience);
c) i've just spent entirely too much time reading the back story of the "dead house negro." i have thoughts but i'm too crazy today to share them. but briefly, i cannot believe someone circulated a critique of you across your university and i also think if you dabble in satire, especially of race relations, you should prepare for shitstorms or blog anonymously;
d) are all of these things related? i mean do you think you were expelled because of your high-profile, provocative positions?
just wondering. thanks for sharing, btw.
Posted by: adjunct whore | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 12:09 PM
While this may be temporarily aggravating, after you're tenured at Harvard, have published twenty well-regarded academic books, and are widely seen as an intellectual "elder statesman" in your field, you will be able to publish the most popular and hilarious memoirs ever written by an academic.
Posted by: Nullifidian | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 12:46 PM
Regarding the oncologist check-up, maybe reschedule? If you can put it off a month and focus your attention on the task of getting the university to correct the registration problem, you may neatly avoid the task of wrestling with the insurance company to reimburse the doctor for your care. Limiting yourself to one faceless bureaucracy at a time seems wise.
COBRA is another option if your qualify for it, though it is expensive. You shouldn't have to shell out any more money to cover the U's mistakes at this points. You shouldn't have to reschedule an apointment, but that seems easier to bear.
Posted by: Emily | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 01:04 PM
The gods hate you, man, but a lot of actual, fleshy beings seem to really love you (despite the fact that you lied to them, though I can't talk, as I had a kid and didn't tell my family for almost 8 months... after he was born, that is, so I feel ya, brother), so you've obviously got lots of support. And these sorts of bureaucratic snafus tend to work out because, well, no self-respecting bureaucracy wants the embarrassment that comes from what is now a public and very-well documented (even in the form of letters thanking you, which I think is the best part of the snafu) mistake. They'll move slowly, as large, cold-blooded creatures are wont to do, but I have a feeling they'll be kissing your Honda-imprinted ass very soon, particularly if they start getting letters from lawyers. Make sure that in addition to refunding your money and readmitting you without delay, make sure to ask for a nice bottle of whine and two tickets to the opera, just to fuck with them.
Posted by: Chris | Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 01:15 PM