Time for a slightly more personal entry, born out of sheer frustration. And what can be more frustrating than bureaucracy. I will admit that perhaps Kabouterland's (Netherlands for insiders) bureaucratic apparatus is not as bad as that of some other countries. After flounting my frustration on well-known networking website called facebook, some of my friends informed me it could be worse.
Olli told me that in Nepal you can bribe officials. Now, I am against corruption, I think it's a bad habit and bad for a country's development. But. At least you can pay people to hurry up. Here, I am left at the mercy of a bunch of people that seem to get paid to be as inefficient as possible. According to Francesco however, in Italy things are even worse. There is no bribing, but in the global inefficiency competitions, the country would be likely to be disqualified for being too good. Obviously neither of these messages helped me.
I will explain. Dutchland, as I am sure has been mentioned before, is a neat country. Litterally. Like a well-tended garden. There are rules for everything and there are no exceptions. Not in theory anyway. And yes, this causes problems in practice but that is not important. What is important is that I saw myself forced to register as a resident living at my parents' address. Without registration, there is not much you can do. Without registration, no insurance for example. For entertainment value, it is probably worth mentioning that health insurance is compulsory in this country. See what I mean? People have thought this through.
Anyway, forced as I saw myself to register, I took off one sunny Friday afternoon to the town hall. Recently - as in a year or so ago - the town where my parents live was given a new town hall. Very fancy building with an entrance which has two doors of which one has to close before the other opens. Very fancy. Apart from a fancy building, the council has also introduced a new system of helping clients.
At reception, you have to explain what you're there for and then you're given a ticket with a number. With your ticket, you continue to the waiting area. I doubt other waiting areas live more up to their name than this one. Waiting you shall. Drivers licence? Two hours. Luckily the town hall doesn't deal with visas because they'd be stiff competition for some embassies.
Asking when it's your turn is impossible because the staff's desks are in a separate area closed off by a glass wall. Only when a number is called do the doors open and can you go in. And don't you dare sneaking in with someone else. Being made of glass, this wall is transparent. Staff can look at the waiting people getting an increasingly high blood pressure and the waiting people can look at the council staff doing nothing. There are loads of desks. Some occupied, some empty. Some of the members of staff at their desks are helping people, some are not. That's where the high blood pressures come from. After all what is more frustrating than waiting and watching people being seemingly improductive whilst they get paid to assist you. Instead they waste time chatting to their colleagues or typing away at their computers. During my thirty minutes of waiting (or however long it was) I drew the conclusion that the council must have been screening all candidates for these jobs on somewhat interesting criteria. Physical appearance is one. There is an odd resemblance between most members of staff. Most are women wearing the same type of ankle boots with a one-inch heel. High enough to be distinct but low enough to be completely acceptable in this calvinistic part of the world - stillettos would be an extravagance. The women present also had quite a considerable backside from sitting and badly cut trousers which are not quite long enough.
Inefficiency is another point on the check-list. Separate question during the interview: please describe your average working day. You start with a 30-minute coffee-break, help someone, don't understand, ask colleague (15 mins), help someone else, second coffee-break (45 mins), assist a colleague for half an hour before you help your last client prior to going for lunch? Ok, one more thing, when you need some help from a colleague, how do you go about the business? You go there, return to your desk, forget something, go back to said colleague, return to your desk, you think you understand, but are not quite sure and so go to colleague for the third time ans ask him/her to accompany you on your way back and supervise you while you continue the task at hand? Brilliant, you're hired!
Perhaps I have exaggerated slightly but not a lot. After having come up with all this and done some more waiting, my lucky moment arrived: my number appeared on the screen. Off I went to the indicated desk. Please take a seat, how can we help you. "I've moved back to the Netherlands after having lived abroad and would like to register here as a resident." No problem. Address, ID card, and last address in the Netherlands. Was I moving back in with my parents. Yes I was. "Right, I need your parents to provide a photocopy of their passports or ID cards and sign a form stating they are fine with you moving back in with them." WHAT??? And yes, everyone present in the area heard that. Mildly agressive as I am, I started making trouble. Very surprised expression, raised eyebrows and eyes clearly saying : this is absurd. "Can I take the form with me and bring it back with signatures and photocopies or do my parents need to come here in person." Luckily they didn't have to. I wouldn't know how to break that news to them...
Then it takes at least 15 minutes to fill out this form and ten minutes to photocopy my ID card. Not looking forward to a second time waiting for thirty minutes or more, I requested an appointment for the next morning. Making an appointment turned out to be the way forward. You're helped almost immediately that way. Still not being easy, handing over my papers, I inquired about the time they expected my registration to take. Ten days to two weeks. Two weeks? Yes, as I am registering after having lived abroad, the Home Office will decide in this matter. The Home Office is in The Hague and so my papers needed to be send to the Hague and then returned before my actual registration could be carried out. Two weeks of being at the mercy of the bureaucrats. Remember that: two weeks...
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