The past two years need little introduction. With policies revised at the drop of a hat, stickers that act as antiviral force fields and temperature screenings that miss over 75 percent of infections, we went through a turbulent period. Having helped manage everything from low-density housing to student arrivals from around the world, Dean of Students Kale Parsley would certainly say that we’ve lived through unprecedented and very difficult times. But now, as the world moves to an endemic management attitude, there is rampant confusion as to how we navigate out of this new phase of the pandemic.

Many controversial decisions have been made, chiefly by the Return to Campus committee. But who even are they? Didn’t we return to campus in January of 2021? In true NYU Abu Dhabi fashion, whenever there is a problem, a faceless committee of bureaucrats is immediately designed to respond to it in the least efficient way possible — like a flight booked from Abu Dhabi to New York through Tokyo. “After all, our budget has to go somewhere”, said Pete Pocketmoni, the chief business extractor. Life has been hard on the entire campus community. “This three percent pay cut has been hard. How will I finance my third yacht rental in the south of France?” questioned Parsley.

Lately, though, events have been held without undergoing rigorous scrutiny regarding whether Covid-19 can be transmitted by lending a student a basketball. Thus, fewer committees are needed for monitoring. An administrative game of musical chairs has ensued, where only the most chronically delayed and frustrated departments will receive a seat.

Rigorous competition has ensued to determine the winning administrative department in this race to the bottom. Resentful of freedom, Student Finance has yet to pay anyone since Omicron became a Covid-19 variant of concern. “The days of students arrogantly jet-setting across the Persian Gulf because they can sit in the CDC office for five hours a day are soon to be over,” the department proudly proclaimed in their internal WhatsApp chat.

The Residential Education department, long maligned, is in the same boat, probably the one in which we all swim every time we have to walk from A1 to D2 between May and October. From late housing application fines, they have managed to collect enough revenue to hire an extra employee to actually write coherent and timely emails for them. Maybe eventually they will finish housing applications within one week of the initially stated deadline. However, “these are hard times and students need to understand that we don’t really want to fix anything, but we can’t say that. Covid-19 has disrupted every aspect of our life and we ask for your flexibility,” said an email from the ResEd alias. They then added, “except when it’s you that is supposed to adhere to the deadlines.”

But nothing in life is permanent. Not a good dish at D2, not a system of campus currency and certainly not any excuse. “Imagine Fall 2022,” said Vice Chancellor Marinade Wickerman at the Board of Directors meeting. “We’ve milked this virus for a pretty long time. But how else can we continue to justify continued inefficiencies and the bureaucratic nightmare of simply existing on a campus borne out of a fever dream?” she asked an audience of Associate Directors of redundant administrative positions.

A receptive audience quickly generated ideas, but none of them were as powerful and far-encompassing as the troubles of the pandemic. “Oil prices are too high” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. In fact, it might even imply that there is more money going around to throw at each and every misallocation. Back to the drawing board.