Norwegian Bureaucracy

A Norwegian girl told me today that bureaucracy is the price that you have to pay for living in a socialist welfare state. Originally I thought it wasnt so bad, but now im beginning to question that.

I went to the student residence desk to ask why internet access hadnt been hooked up to my room yet. They told me that my account hadnt been activated and that I needed to talk to the IT deptarment. So I went to the IT department today and asked them to activate my account. The guy at the help desk asked me whether I had registered on StudentWeb (the universitys online course registration system) and I told him yes. He asked whether I had paid my semester fee and I told him yes. I then logged into StudentWeb and showed him how the screen acknowledged that both of those things had been completed. He asked when I paid the fee and I said last week. He asked how I paid the fee and I told him at the post office because I dont have a Norwegian bank account yet (I have to jump through about 3 more hoops before that one is ready, and it will probably take another month or so) and he said thats likely the problem - the payment takes longer to register on their system from the post office than from a direct transfer (despite it somehow ALREADY REGISTERING in StudentWeb). I asked if there was anyone I could talk to in order to show them my predicament and he said no, I just have to wait, and that I should come back on Wednesday if its not working by then.

I get the feeling, however, that if the guy at the help desk had to live without Internet access for 2 weeks that perhaps something might be done to remedy the situation a little more quickly...