Mixed Fortunes

I rang the OU today, and explained that I had found someone who was happy to swap weeks with me, so could they arrange it? "No."

To cut a long story short, they have a system of e-waiting lists. As soon as one person drops out of a week, the first person on the waiting list gets slotted in. Efficient if you are simply waiting for a place to appear, but what if you want to swap and you already have someone to swap with?

I sought some advice from David Keen, who agreed that this was "pretty poor." Within an hour, he had emailed the SXR207 course manager (I suppose it's "module" manager now). He suggested that we should both phone the OU, explain the situation and get them to sort it out.

I emailed Svati, my would be "swapee", copying in the OU residential schools team, and explained to her that she needs to phone them up and get herself placed on the waiting list for the week I'm currently on. With luck, this should resolve the situation, but I've never known red tape quite like this from the OU before. Sheesh.