Soon I will be deported.

Before the feds come and get me, I want to set down my tale of descent into NIU Bureaucratic Hell.

In early December I was hired to be the Star’s feature editor for this semester. Since I am a graduate student who holds an assistantship, I also had to get permission from the university to hold a second job. No problem, I thought. Such naivete makes up the stones that pave my road to Bureaucratic Hell.

Go to the Office of Student Employment, I was told. They greeted me with a thin smile. No, they said, student employment is where you end up. First you have to go to the Graduate School and get their permission. Was the noise I heard in the background a rooster crowing in delight at the prospect of another student sent packing?

The Graduate School was very pleased to see me. Had I been to my department to get a letter of permission from my academic adviser?

No. I left, a bit shaken, but comforted by the fact that I was young enough to withstand the rigors of cross-campus trips.

I approached the acting head of the department and explained my plight. Ah, that was a difficult problem, the acting head told me. He said he was not in charge of Decisions, but his speciality was Buck Passing.

Worse than that, he wasn’t sure he should make a Decision about whether he should make a Decision. By this time, the thought of sticking his neck out had caused his eyes to bulge and his mouth to foam.

In the end the pressure was too much for him, and he returned to the classroom as planned this semester, unencumbered by the decision he never made.

A new year came and I had occasion to talk to the department head, who was returning from leave and had no problem making a Decision. In this whole sordid tale, he is a hero and stands on the side of angels. He agreed to my request, wrote the necessary letter and shipped me a copy within a day. A semester away from the bureaucracy had apparently cleansed his soul.

The Graduate School responded to the document by generating a document of its own, in, to be fair, timely fashion.

Armed with the necessary documents, I returned to the Office of Student Employment. I stepped over the twisted souls of fellow travelers who had given up their quest. I walked to the necessary window, coughing a bit at the distinct smell of brimstone.

The woman staffing the counter tapped my social security number into the computer. “We don’t have the documents,” she said. Out of her mouth came a noise that sounded like a rooster crowing. It was not an earthly noise. A demon from Bureaucratic Hell had possessed her.

Knowing that I was in the presence of a force stronger than myself, I did not argue, but instead went back to the Graduate School. They called student employment. The woman at the grad school reached a woman who was not possessed. They found my papers.

I went back to that pit of iniquity and braced for final victory. That’s when I found out I was not a verifiable citizen. To prove citizenship, everyone employed must file documents proving that he did not swim across the Rio Grande to enter this country.

For my graduate assistantship, I proved my citizenship. That document was not sufficient in Bureaucratic Hell. They didn’t want copies; they wanted original documents, like my Social Security card or birth certificate.

Head in hands, I inquired why one college department’s certification was not good at another department’s. The simple answer was that it was a different sector of Bureaucratic Hell.

A rooster crowed for the third time.

I am abandoned to my fate. Until I can prove my citizenship, I am either unemployed at the Star or else I am an illegal alien. Since I am obviously at work, I must be an alien and subject to arrest by the feds any day.

Each day I pray for deliverance, and for the souls of those who staff Bureaucratic Hell.