Yes, my wife and I look forward to the kids returning to school. I’ m sure she thinks along the lines that we’re getting the kids back on a regular schedule and we don’t have to think about trips, traveling, and keeping the kids entertained.
While I’m looking forward to the return of school, my self-professed joy comes from simple self-survival: No more camp forms to fill out, fill in, copy, fax, mail, take to the doctor’s office or retrieve from the doctor’s office.
When I was a kid, back at the dawn of time, my parents kicked the door open and told me to go outside. I did my camps: YMCA Camp Letts and a couple of basketball camps, but we didn’t do anything or have the number of camps that our kids now have to choose from, which meant that we had fewer forms that needed to be filled out and to be filled in.
For many kids, you don’t go to camp for more then one week, now, and then it’s on to the next camp requiring an abundance of: scheduling, driving, food and of course the ubiquitous stack of camp forms. Somewhere we’ve denuded an entire forest for this year’s camp forms.
Every camp (and school, too, of course) requires some state form that includes health records and vaccinations. But, the camps don’t stop there.
Some camps require you to use state-required forms. Some won’t let you use state required forms – you have to use their forms, which if you really look hard, have the same stuff the state forms have or is that the other way around? Use someone else’s forms or don’t send in their forms on threat of death or worse, like sending the kids back to you or even refusing to let them in.
The additional paperwork affects doctors too. They charge for multiple camp forms and have to hire more camp form filler-outers. And, what if you don’t get the forms – which is what happened to us a few weeks ago.
We visited some friends this summer and enrolled both our children in two, weeklong camps. I’m 100% certain I filled out the camp forms for my son.
I think, maybe, perhaps….whatever.
Despite all of my bravado, I was still directed back to the main office where the woman in front of me was facing the fact that:
A) She needed to re-do all the forms
B) She was on vacation and didn’t have the forms and, that
C) Even if she reached the doctor, she wasn’t sure the forms would be filled out in one day.
If that’s wasn’t bad enough, the snotty camp director showed as much sympathy as you would towards a convicted felon. When my turn came, I was told that my forms hadn’t arrived and that I needed to fill them out now or my son wouldn’t be able to participate. So I smiled a “I’m only the Dad” smile, filled out the forms, took the camp director’s business card and went back to our friend’s house.
I also took a minute to think about and write a gentle email commenting on the fact that if more than one or two other people hadn’t filled out the forms, too, then, perhaps there was a problem with their e-mails or their process.
Ooops!
You would have thought I had called him a big fibber! I’m in charge of getting all the forms in and I have to….yadda, yadda, yadda…he said. I wrote a wonderfully tart reply reminding him that WE were (GASP) the customers and it wouldn’t hurt to listen, nod and forget we ever were there. This process made me feel better, but had I actually sent the email, it probably would have resulted in the request to have a “professional, in-person discussion” on this topic. (You know who you are Nantucket boy!) Worse still, they might have sent my son back to me covered with empty forms stapled to his tee shirt.
Another camp sent a note asking me to finally fill out all the forms. Fearing the worst, I went back to the computer and checked. What in the world were they talking about? I called and was politely informed that they sent a reminder to all parents regardless of whether they had done all the paperwork or not.
Couldn’t you just check off a little box so you wouldn’t send me a note causing my blood to drain from my body? Jeez, don’t you realize that my wife starts asking ME questions when she sees e-mails like that: Didn’t you do all the forms? Didn’t you send all the forms? Didn’t they receive all the forms? Didn’t they email you telling you that they received all the forms?
Now, as September is fast-approaching, thank goodness for the return of school.
I’ve already sent in all those forms. Or, did I send them to the school’s summer camp? I’m sure that I’ll find out soon…like, when school starts.
Now let’s talk about car-pooling…