Is my conference from hell finally over?

About a year and a half ago, I had an absolutely miserable experience. A student and I were going to the American Arachnology Society conference at Cornell University; we paid up the conference fees, made a lovely poster, booked our flights, and traipsed down to the Minneapolis airport…where we sat for two days, watching our flight get delayed and delayed, and eventually, finally, they gave up and told us that our flights were cancelled, we should go home.

That was terrible enough.

All this was paid through university travel funds, and I did all the responsible stuff of getting our registration fees reimbursed (I thought), and while we were miserable and disappointed, we were done. Except…my nightmare had only just begun.

You see, all travel expenses at my university go through some accounting software called Chrome River. We didn’t go? We spent less than we’d told it we were going to? Some of the planned expenses were bouncing back with reimbursements? Total shit fit. I’ve been dealing with its conniptions ever since, getting cryptic demands and threats by email.

What totally threw the software was a) Cornell said we were getting reimbursed, but we didn’t, and I only just got a check for the registration fees this week, and b) the rotten airline did not reimburse us at all, but instead billed the university for $60 for flight cancellation. That’s right, they cancelled the flights, but we got charged extra for the inconvenience.

Chrome River has been dunning me, personally, for the money for the past year. If I didn’t cough up something in the next few days, I was going to be held responsible for spending less money than we had planned, and was going to have to pay up or else. All year long, I’ve been getting these horribly opaque machine-generated emails from some evil accounting software.

Well, I think I’ve finally jumped through all the flaming hoops they’ve demanded of me, getting all the ridiculous paperwork filled out and filed today. I’m done.

Except…I’m told that tomorrow I have to log on to Chrome River and press three buttons to finalize everything. I’m terrified. I’ve seen how Chrome River reacts to tiny deviations from its required protocol. What if I press the wrong button, or press them in the wrong order, or fail to show the proper respect while following its demands? This hell might go on even longer.

I think I might have to retire sooner than expected just to avoid dealing with Chrome River ever again.