Frustrations. Advice, please?

Met with the executive dean today to discuss some concerns I had about the program, namely field programs not being given as advertised, the lack of compensation for failed field programs, and that whole dock time thing. She was a nice enough lady who said there was a possibility of a partial refund, at least on the awful trip on the first day in South Africa. Somehow, though, I got the impression that she expected me to forget about it and assume it would be taken care of. Clearly this woman has never met someone as obsessive and stingy as me before.

She got very slimy and used-car salesman-y when I brought up the lack of actual service on our service trips. You know how you should always read the fine print? Apparently, even though it’s never actually stated anywhere in the field program catalog, there’s a decisive difference between a “service visit” and a “service project”. I signed on for “service visits”, meaning I literally “visit” an organization that does a “service”, and maybe get to interact with people in the process. If I’d done a "project" like I'm signed up to do in India, I’d actually get to do things (we'll see about that). I was speechless at the blatant wretchedness of that explanation. It was as if they enjoyed manipulating me into spending money on what I thought was something else. Here’s a tip, SAS. If you’re going to get all high and mighty and tell me to “read the fine print”, maybe preface the fact that you actually HAVE fine print. I’m so frustrated by that. I wish I was my daddy right now. He’d scare them straight.

The dean denied a lot of my accusations of how they handled the dock time thing. I’m not going to get it revoked no matter how hard I try.

I just want to hit my head against the wall. How can an organization that’s giving me such an amazing opportunity constantly make me feel like they’re deliberately wasting my time?