friends! have you ever heard of an apostille? i hadn’t, either, until i attempted to provide my U.S. birth certificate as an official identifying document to a local department here in germany and the presiding officer gave me a look of genuine pity. my yellowing birth certificate - the one document, besides my social security card, which i had been taught to guard with my life - means nothing here, if not apostille’d.
I know exactly what you mean. we've had to do a lot of document collection (apostilled, of course) recently, and it's just-- ugh.
"there is nothing quite like being caught in an unending cycle of bureacracy-begetting-bureacracy to make a human being feel like a hamster running on a wheel!"
this also reminded me of this from Travels with Charlie, where he talks about how he feels in the aftermath of an unpleasant encounter with an official:
"But government can make you feel so small and mean that it takes some doing to build back a sense of self-importance. Charley and I stayed at the grandest auto court we could find that night, a place only the rich could afford, a pleasure dome of ivory and apes and peacocks and moreover with a restaurant, and room service. I ordered ice and soda and made a scotch and soda and then another. Then I had a waiter in and bespoke soup and a steak and a pound of raw hamburger for Charley, and I overtipped mercilessly. Before I went to sleep I went over all the things I wished I had said to that immigration man, and some of them were incredibly clever and cutting."
I know exactly what you mean. we've had to do a lot of document collection (apostilled, of course) recently, and it's just-- ugh.
"there is nothing quite like being caught in an unending cycle of bureacracy-begetting-bureacracy to make a human being feel like a hamster running on a wheel!"
this also reminded me of this from Travels with Charlie, where he talks about how he feels in the aftermath of an unpleasant encounter with an official:
"But government can make you feel so small and mean that it takes some doing to build back a sense of self-importance. Charley and I stayed at the grandest auto court we could find that night, a place only the rich could afford, a pleasure dome of ivory and apes and peacocks and moreover with a restaurant, and room service. I ordered ice and soda and made a scotch and soda and then another. Then I had a waiter in and bespoke soup and a steak and a pound of raw hamburger for Charley, and I overtipped mercilessly. Before I went to sleep I went over all the things I wished I had said to that immigration man, and some of them were incredibly clever and cutting."
You should be some sort of a foreign bureaucratic docent!