Comedy? Horror? Drama?

Let me tell you a story I experience since last wednseday. I'm not quite sure to which genre this story belongs to. Is it a comedy? Or rather a horror story? Or a drama?
Anyways it all begins in August 2007, when one of my flatmates moves out and fills in this form to forward his mail to his mom's address. By mistake he writes my name on it as well because he beliefs he has to indicate someone who will be living in this place afterwards. Then, 3 months (!) pass by and nothing happens.
Now last wednesday my ex-flatmates mom calls me and tells me that she always gets my mail and she can't give it back to the postman because he refuses to take it cause this is my new address in their system (and I don't get any mail since around 2 weeks). We agree that she'll send it in a new envelope to my address and I'll pay the post office here a visit. I did that on thursday and the lady there after some blablabla writes down my name, address and my ex-flatmates name on a blank sheet and tells me she will proceed that as a customer complaint.
Today, one hour ago I get another call from my ex-flatmates mom and she tells me that it has been sent back once again to her. Ok, already a bit pissed off I decide to go to the post office here again. And now the real story starts:
I explain the employee on the counter the situation and first thing she answers me: "that is not our mistake" - yeah, well sure but who cares, I don't give a damn about that, I was actually there to make it change and not to blame anyone. Ok, then I tell here that she needs to change that in the system: "oooh, we can't do that, that can be done only by those upstairs" (who are of course not there on a saturday). ok, then she says something that the postman has to get this info. I tell her that it must be a mistake in the system because my name is still on the mailbox. And that it was quite strange because suddenly my name on the mailbox was crossed and I had to put a new "name tag". "Ooooh, but postmen are not allowed to do that, I must have been someone else" - yeah sure, someone else, coincidentally scratches my ex-flatmates name (the one who moved out) and mine with the same blue pen and didn't cross the names of my other two flatmates - probably this mysterious "someone" was one of my current flatmates... anyways, what could we do. fill in a form, of course - that's what you always do in such situations. it took her ages to fill it in because she didn't have a clue about that form neither did her colleague from the next counter. And in the end she finally says "Ok, let's hope it's gonna work like that!" - Excuse me? Hope? Noooo, now it has to work otherwise it will definitely be your mistake :)

Now key question for students like me who study marketing and always hear stuff about alignement of words and action: Does this experience support the following, very nice statement Swiss Post has on their website?

We think and act in a customer-oriented manner

Customers are at the heart of our every thought and action. Our company recognizes their needs at an early stage and acts correspondingly.

Hopefully not to be continued!

Action required!

These days it's getting dark outside at 5 pm already! These days it's snowing the whole day! If you have a look on a calendar these days, you see an 11. These signs are clearly indicating to me, that everythings coming to an end! The year, the term, the time in St. Gallen, the studies take a bit longer but the end is visible, the time in AIESEC as well. But on the other hand, I have the impression these days, that the time is running out! I see a mountain of work to overcome but the clock keeps ticking. Everything makes it clear, decisions have to be taken, action is required! Now!
This might sound, that I get somehow depressive, stuck in the winter blues with cold grey days and even colder dark nights. But nooo, actually I feel content right now. Why? Because I have the feeling that I'm making progress and acomplish something:

DO-IT
Do-it was last weekend and after some difficult days of planning and organising, re-planning and re-re-planning the conference finally took place. It was a special conference in different ways. First of all, It was my first (and probably only) conference as track responsible and faci. But the Alumni Track was running somehow apart from the rest of the conference. Ok, it a part was because of me, but some other decisions were not mine! And although I belonged to the faci team, I didn't feel like being part of it. I met some old friends from @ time which is of course very cool as well, but you get a bit ambitious over the years and if you don't really meet new people...
Concerning our track itself, not everything turned out as we planned or hoped but there have been developments during the track which I didn't expect at all. Alumni started the discussion where they could be involved and what should be changed. And they insisted to make this happen! On the first glance it looks like a lot of work for us (or better: for our successors:) and it sure is! But if you have a closer look, you can say, that they actually gave us, the NST Alumni Relations bargaining power. Bargaining power we need to negotiate with MC and LCs to finally get them doing something concerning Alumni Relations!

Studies
Concerning studies there is still a whole lot to do and if it doesn't happen now, I don't know when to do everything. For my exchange term in Rotterdam I finally made up my mind and decided which courses to take! Decision taken, acted as well! For the courses I'm taking this term there's still several things to do although we just handed in a case study today. There's a presentation about water problems for households in switzerland coming up in 1.5 weeks. And it's quite difficult for our group to have a presentation about that if guest speakers keep telling you that everyone else will have water problems except switzerland! Then, there is the report for our pracitcal project we have to hand in in a month - yes at the same time I'll have two other exams and all the courses are mandatory for our masters. What great planners those universities are...
On the other hand there's still my master thesis. I was worried the last weeks but now, I think it's getting ok. I have to shift my expectations and try to get all the interviews done before leaving to Rotterdam. But the interview with the first company I had last monday and the one with the second company I'm supposed to get next week. I probably leave it with those two and will interview only their clients but won't try to get another one and hope the brands of those two will outshine my work. I don't thank them yet as work is not finished, but I'm still excited to have Hilti and IBM on board!

busy days

I'm quite busy these days with blockseminary at uni, preparing sessions, migrating data to my new laptop and of course now our internet connection is not working. i'm glad that there are still some unsecured wlans around:) the picture below shows my multitasking with aiesec-email and session preparation for do-it...

Questioning

My life is full of questions at the moment. Some are more important than others of course but I have the impression all of them should be answered immediately.
Why is it impossible for some companies to maintain a proper communication management? I know a student who want to write a master thesis is not the most important task, but still, I think it can´t be possible that the head of a department for business partner in switzerland (of a very well known company) is not able to answer (himself or through an assistant) on an email in 5 weeks, a phone call in 3 weeks and a second phone call in more than a week. How should you be able to get in touch with such people?
Why do universities always say they want to encourage mobility for students but act otherwise? They introduce a bologna-system but let you prepare applications with tons of material if you want to switch, then tell you that you have to do additional courses and complain in the end that they have an additional workload. Or they adapt starting and ending dates of terms but only so much, that it´s not enough to go abroad without any problems. Then they complain that the profs. can´t go to fall holidays with their families anymore. And they won´t let you take an exam earlier if you want to go on an exam term. Question is now, should I stay till the exam and then go or should I go and have to come back to take the exam and then go again...?
What kind of courses should I take in my exchange term? Too many options for criterias: Rather the interesting ones? Rather the ones with not too much workload? Rather the ones with exams or the ones with papers? The ones which offer long weekends or the ones with classes on monday and friday?
And then there are other ones like how should you design an alumni track with mostly very recent alumni? how should you promote something very emotional like a screw? Is the questionnaire for the master thesis gonna work? Is the whole thesis gonna work? And so on. but for now it´s time to go back to work and figure the answers out...