Kortsenteret og Byråkrati

February 12th, 2008 Posted in General, Study

Did I already mention the number of cards you need to get when living (and especially studying) in Oslo? Yes? Good. Today I went on the mighty quest to get a so-called key-card, which, as the name sort of indicates, opens all sorts of doors. Without is they are closed (dørene lukkes). This means no access to buildings after 6, no access to the nice private reading room for our master programme, no elevators after 6, no access to lecture rooms… So, having finally received my Semester card I hopefully went to Kortsenteret to get this precious piece of plastic.

For a change, they only required two things in order to get this key-card: a semester card and some legitimation. Great!? No. Apparently a Dutch Identity Card does not look like a valid ID, that is, it didn’t match completely with some checklist. After explaining that it was the very same card that allowed me to enter the country in the first place, the guy helping me decided that this decision was too big for him, and he consulted a colleague. At last they had to accept the fact that I had indeed shown a valid ID. Great!? No. Maybe the guy was annoyed that I had proven him wrong, or maybe he doesn’t like Dutch people (although we started off nicely), or maybe it was time for lunch, I don’t know. But he managed to find another reason not to give me my beloved key-card. My semester card had ‘Daan’ printed on it, while my ID clearly said ‘Daniël’. Oh, the horror! The crime! This was really most peculiar. How on earth had I ever even considered giving the ‘wrong’ name to the university? No, no key-card for me. But, luckily, there’s the easy solution of going to another building, giving someone my ‘correct’ name so that he can give this information to someone else, who can than put it in the system, which takes some days to digest this new information, after which a new semester card can be ordered, which takes some days, but then…then…oh heaven, oh delight, I will maybe be allowed to possess this all-mighty artifact! Oh well.

  1. 3 Responses to “Kortsenteret og Byråkrati”

  2. By Matthijs on Feb 12, 2008

    crimineel!

  3. By Cyriel on Feb 12, 2008

    hahahaha ik dacht het verkrijgen van 6 verschillende handtekeningen voor ieder vak dat ik in california wilde volgen al bureaucratisch was ( WAT HET OOK IS ! LAAT DAAR GEEN TWIJFEL OVER BESTAAN) maar uh Daan, uuuhhh DANIEL ik denk dat ik nu toch mijn meerdere in jou moet erkennen :( Maaruh geen hard feelings hoor…IK GUN JE DIE EER VAN HARTE……GA ZO DOOR !!!!!!!

  4. By Jeroen on Feb 13, 2008

    Terrible! I wonder if would have had the patience to go through the entire procedure of changing my registered name again after all the trouble I had to go through to get the other cards.

    By the way, do they use their suitcases as wallets there to cope with the large number of cards they need to carry around all the time? ;)

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