When I'm 64 [redux]

It came about 25 years earlier than I expected. I got my social security number today.

And I did get paid in October, though it was three weeks into the month and it wasn't a paycheque, but a sort of emergency fund cheque issued on orders from the University Vice President himself, after my Dean demanded it.

I think he, the Dean, was afraid I was going to sue them. It's funny, how Americans think.

I told you the other day how that German efficiency thing had bitten me in the ass. How the best thing to do when you emigrate to the United States, apparently, is to be slack in filing your paperwork.

When that clerk told me it would be another four weeks, I gave up on the idea of being paid in October. See, the Human Resources people at USJ had told me in no uncertain terms that without that godforsaken number, they simply could not pay me. Uh uh, absolutely not, no way, no can do. Without that number you are dirt. You are less than dirt. You are the slime beneath the dirt.

But yes, of course we still expect you to keep right on working. Yes, we know that you moved your life across the continent to come work for us, and that you had to pay nearly $10,000 of your own money to do so, and that we said we'd reimburse you for some of that, and we will, one day soon, possibly even before the end of the year, but you're not complaining, are you? You should be thrilled to be allowed to work in this great country of ours, shouldn't you? Isn't that why you came? To be free? You're not really free up there in Canada, are you? We heard you don't even have a first ammendment, how can you be free?

Remember I told you, Gentle Reader, how Hollywood Tom and some of the other professors had been dropping by my office with increasing frequency, and how I finally figured out it was because they were afraid I'd run away?

Well, the emergency cheque from the Vice President's office was cut the day after Arthur and Doris had popped in and asked "How are you?"

I had replied, "I'm fine, but I would be better if I were paid."

They were appalled to hear that I hadn't been, and demanded to know the story. So I told them.

"I think you may have a lawsuit on your hands," said Doris, calmly. She's a lawyer in addition to being a professor. She teaches business law here in the School of Business Communications at USJ, and she has a thriving practice in the neighbouring town of Sunnyvale. She would have taken my case right then, I'm sure.

I settled for allowing her to march me to the Dean's office. It was after 5:00 on a Friday, but he was still there. Feet were stamped. Calls were made. And the next morning at 9:00 I had a call from HR, "Come pick up your check."

So I went for a smoke break walk to the other side of the campus, where the administration building lies.

"You have an envelope for me?" I asked the receptionist, as I'd been told to do.

"Name?"

I told her.

"Here it is." She took a small business-size envelope out of a larger inter-office envelope, and gave me a sheet to sign. "Sign here to show you received it."

I signed. Gave it back to her. Held out my hand for the envelope.

"Can I see your I.D., please?"

"I don't have any I.D. And if you don't know who I am, then you're the only one in this department who doesn't."

"Is there someone here who knows you?"

I gave her three names. She went to check. Apparently, they were all out.

She refused to give me the cheque that she had just made me sign a receipt for.

"Look, here's the thing. I don't have any I.D. I don't have a social security number. I haven't been paid, and I'm not leaving here without that cheque. Do what you have to do, but give it to me."

She called my department secretary, Anna Lisa.

"Um hum. Yes. Brown hair."

Brown hair?

She gave me the cheque.

Later that afternoon I was in the department office, and Anna Lisa said, "Some woman called here earlier and asked me to describe you. That was weird."

I told her what had happened.

There ensued some jokes about checking Air Canada flights.

"Yeah, but if you disappeared you'd have to pay back those moving expenses," said Anna Lisa. Her job as department assistant includes completing the necessary forms for the reimbursement of these expenses. She swears she's done so, and that I should have the cheque any day now.

This is what I was thinking, but didn't say to Anna Lisa: "Right. I'm in this country legally, after a not inconsiderable amount of paper was pushed on my behalf. In the now eleven weeks since I've been here, everyone has been pushing all the right papers, and yet I just now get my social security number, haven't been paid, can't get on the benefits plan, can't get a phone or a credit card. And you think that if I just disappeared, there'd be anything you could do about it?"

At the very least, I'll wait until that cheque arrives.