I thought this only happened in email forwards...

So my university's IT people are upgrading some marginally important who-knows-what and had to shut down some systems to do it for a few days. One of these systems allows off-campus access to library databases, which I need to continue moving forward with my master's thesis and get articles for class, etc.

To accommodate people like me, they said we could ask for a temporary login and password that would permit off-campus access. I sent an email requesting these and got this reply:

Hello. The best way to obtain a password for remote access is to contact the computer service desk in S_____ Hall. The number is 3768. They may not be able to help today but they can on Monday. The computer systems are expected to be down until Monday.

I dunno, what do you call this? Technoratic idiocy? Institutional oblivion?