Mastodawn

WGAvanDijk 6d ago

Some years ago, I needed to get an visa for urgent travel to China, a process that required me to fly down to SF and stand in a very long line at the Chinese consulate. When I finally handed the woman there my forms, she promptly stamped them and said "you need to take these to Window 2", pointing around the corner. So I walked around the corner...

...where *the same woman* swiveled her chair around and proceeded to check the stamp that she had just applied.

I would have been annoyed if I wasn't in so much awe at discovering the purest form of bureaucracy.

rk: it’s hyphen-minus actually 6d ago

Douglas Adams would be proud

Dan Ports 6d ago

@rk this scene would translate well to an Infocom game

I can't remember but p sure this was a puzzle in Out of Order

@dan @rk isn't that more or less what Papers, Please is about? https://papersplea.se/

Papers, Please

@oddhack …no? granted I haven’t finished the game yet. but still…no? lol

cthos 🐱6d ago

@dan When I did my Nexus interview I did it in Vancouver where I had to interview with both a Canadian officer and an American one. They sat next to each other, there was barely a partition. They asked the same questions. It seemed to me that this whole process amused them.

@dan not even a cowboy hat or a fake mustache?

Irene Zhang 6d ago

@dev @dan only if it’s the same guy with dual citizenship

Nobody tells me nothin'.

Carrie Shanafelt 6d ago

@dan I had my first Chinese consulate experience 10 years ago in NYC and everyone told me, "Just hire a proxy. They are professionals. You cannot do this." I decided this sounded like something I had to experience. Like you, I left in awe.

Andrea (Drea) Tamar Pinski 6d ago

@carrideen @dan

When I got my visa in 2015, the company i was working for hired a proxy. After reading this thread I am so happy they did.

Jonathan Yu 6d ago

@dan That's amazing

Rob Ricci 6d ago

@dan truly, we Americans are only babies when it comes to bureaucracy

Jonathan Yu 6d ago

@ricci @dan even Americans in academia??

Howard Chu @ Symas 6d ago

@jawnsy @ricci @dan China invented bureaucracy, they've been perfecting it over centuries...

Rob Ricci 6d ago

@hyc @jawnsy @dan millennia, even

American academia has only got to the "punching oneself in the junk" stage, amateur stuff, really

Dan Ports 6d ago

@ricci @hyc @jawnsy I mean, they had the emperor personally writing standardized tests two millennia ago, how can we even compare?

https://discuss.systems/@dan/112193317211093410

Rob Ricci 6d ago

@dan @hyc @jawnsy I assume the next stage was creating a bureau to write the tests

@ricci @dan I keep telling people who complain about red tape that America is paradise.

My camera shoots fascists 6d ago

This sounds like a scene that was rejected from the movie Brazil for being outlandishly unbelievable.

Angela G 6d ago

@dan Years ago I went to India. On the plane, they gave us a card to fill out, which I did. When we went through the immigration line, the first guy looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at my card, signed my card, and directed me to the next window. At this window, the guy looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at my card, and stamped the card. He then directed me to the final window,where a guy looked at me, looked at the card, looked at the passport, and took the card.

@grayladywriter @dan there was something similar when we went to Cairo almost 30 years ago. But I think it was maybe six or eight steps and involved someone putting a physical stamp in my passport (like one you lick to stick on). And then another person used a stamp (an ink stamp) to stamp the other stamp. And there was some card we filled out on the plane that someone else I think inspected and wrote something on that then someone else had to stamp with an ink stamp. And that card then went to another person. And there was a luggage inspection in there somewhere. Luckily we had a company expediter meet us at the plane and he shepherded us through the whole process, paid the various fees/tips/bribes/baksheesh, talked to the various officials, arranged for someone to carry/guard/not steal the luggage, and whatnot. Otherwise I've got no idea how a normal person was supposed to navigate that process because there was no obvious order to what was happening.

I've got to imagine the various highly bureaucratic societies consult each other and have contests on how they can invent new layers of bureaucracy.

Back in the 1980s, some Italian cafes employed a similar system. As a customer, you'd place your order at one window, and the clerk would give you a receipt/voucher. You'd then step to a second window, and hand over the slip of paper before stepping to a third window where you'd collect your coffee. I recall, though these are hazy old memories, at least one morning where it was the same person at each of the three windows.

Also, I once did the same PRC consulate dance in SF!

@lolcat
I too would stick to getting the customer to do all three windows. Some certainly have it as routine and I would not wish to upset them.
@dan

Marius Gedminas 4d ago

@lolcat @dan That's how bookstores worked in the Soviet Union in my childhood. You stand in line, tell one clerk what book you want, they tell you the price. You stand in line at the register, tell them the price, pay, get a receipt. Back to the first line, hand the receipt to the clerk, get your book. (The clerk puts the receipt on a huge metal spike, like a vertical shish-kebab of paper, that left an impression in my young mind. Didn't seem very safe.)

Now that you mention it, I believe at least some of the cafes used the giant receipt skewers too!

Vaguely related: in the early aughts, at a Roman train station, I visited the customer service office for reasons I can't remember. Inside a couple was engaged in an animated, hand-waving argument with a clerk in a uniform, but hatless. After several minutes, the clerk held up a hand, disappeared through a door, and returned with another clerk, also uniformed, but wearing an...

...impressive cap.

The argument resumed, and after several minutes, the hatted clerk held up and hand and disappeared through the same door. Minutes later, he returned with a third clerk in an even more impressive hat. Same pattern repeats.

When the *fourth* clerk appeared, he was wearing an absurdly large and ornate cap. He produced a large rubber stamp from a pouch, and the other three clerks stepped away from the desk. Flourishing the stamp grandly, he inked the ...

...complaining couples documents with a confident smack, held up the documents, and handed them back. The room went silent for a moment, then he and the second and third clerks disappeared back through the door form which they had emerged.

I fell in love with Italy a little.

Dustin Lang 6d ago

@dan I once had a German secretary-type go to the safe, pull out a large stack of 50-Euro notes, count out my "stipend", and then take that stack of notes, count it out again, gather it up for my "fees", put it back in the safe, and have me sign a piece of paper saying (I can only presume, I don't read German) that I had witnessed this theatre

Karl Statz 6d ago

@dan the Chinese consulate general in Chicago is, essentially, across the street from the former Rock and Roll McDonald's which would have added a nice level of absurdity on top that feels DeLillo esque

@dan interesting contrast to when I stopped in Shanghai for the 144-hour transit visa. There was a long line and a group of 5 customs officials behind a counter, handling one applicant at a time. Every passport was closely scrutinized by every officer, discussed as a group, and much paperwork filled out. But almost no questions were asked aside from where we were staying. I hypothesized that it was a full employment mechanism for inspectors.

Ian K. Rogers ikr?╭ರ_ಠ 6d ago

@dan Having worked in systems-forward (bureaucratized) offices myself I have a theory:
those are two separate jobs and her coworker was not available.
There are two separate windows to improve a specific functional flow. If she did both jobs at her own window things would have gotten messed up as the office space on the other side of the counter is set up to perform that kind of flow.
Like the Italian coffee shop.

NilaJones 6d ago

@ianrogers @dan

I think most of us readers knew that. We are just having fun

I Can't Believe It's Not Zero!6d ago

@dan Jen once needed a special cultural exchange visa to go work in a hospital in China. Getting it required _5_ trips to the consulate in New York, each time being sent away to come back with a more significant seal from the inviting institution.

Rob Ricci 6d ago

@steve @dan eventually they make you get a sea lion

Karl Statz 6d ago

@ricci @steve @dan my both alma mater and employer for teaching had a problem with their old diplomas and, specifically, the Chinese government. they were very avant-garde for a diploma and a lot of international students had trouble convincing their home governments that they were real. eventually they changed to a more traditional design and students could pay to have theirs re-printed.

Karl Statz 6d ago

@ricci @steve @dan full disclosure I never got mine re-printed (nor do I think I ever actually picked it up, the leather thing we were handed at graduation was a rather tasteless form to donate money as an alumni). I should do that next time I'm on campus

Dan Ports 6d ago

@kstatz12 @ricci @steve for an additional fee, you can have your diploma printed on any surface of your choice, such as a tortilla or a Fruit Roll-Up

Karl Statz 6d ago

@dan @ricci @steve I did take a class in the old Liberal Arts Core that allowed you to do the final in the medium of your major. I watched a dance performance nominally centered around the assassination of Tzar Nicholas the II. so that is not outside the realm of possibility

Dan Ports 6d ago

@kstatz12 @ricci @steve I once went to see @sharon's high school marching band compete with a performance about the JFK assassination

but I was still confused by marching bands and thus surprised to find them surrounding me in multi-battalion strength

Karl Statz 6d ago

@dan @ricci @steve @sharon at least it wasn't the Stanford band recreating the Irish Potato Famine on the field at Notre Dame.

Irene Zhang 6d ago

@kstatz12 @dan @ricci @steve @sharon or was it …?

I Can't Believe It's Not Zero!5d ago

@kstatz12 @dan @ricci @sharon the Brown band depicted a coat-hangar abortion in the halftime show at Holy Cross (still banned from campus 40 years later, I think) 😬.

fan boy 🪭5d ago

@steve @kstatz12 @dan @ricci @sharon
Nice

Karl Statz 5d ago

@steve @dan @ricci @sharon is there like a group of outlaw band directors like 1% bikers. do they have the diamond patch on their uniforms?

I Can't Believe It's Not Zero!5d ago

@kstatz12 @dan @ricci @sharon common thread of most of these bands (Stanford and most of the Ivies [ex-Cornell], plus some others) is that they don't have directors, they're purely student run (usually with a faculty advisor).

Karl Statz 5d ago

@steve @dan @ricci @sharon as someone who was nearly tricked into being a faculty advisor (for the school quidditch team) that has a strong possibility of ending in chaos

I Can't Believe It's Not Zero!5d ago

@kstatz12 @dan @ricci @sharon Other hit episodes include "The Princeton Band visits The Citadel (2008)" and "The Brown Band may or may not still be banned from West Point, it was like 1985 and I don't think it's come up again."

Karl Statz 5d ago

@steve @dan @ricci @sharon "trolling service academies for fun and profit: an ivy guide"

Rob Ricci 5d ago

@kstatz12 @steve @dan @sharon my kid's middle school band played "killing in the name" at their recital, that probably got the director his patch

Karl Statz 5d ago

@ricci @steve @dan @sharon that or cooking biker crank in a sousaphone

Greg Parker 5d ago

@dan @kstatz12 @ricci @steve is a diploma printed on a tortilla a sandwich

Rob Ricci 5d ago

@gparker @dan @kstatz12 @steve Asking the real questions here, Greg

Greg Parker 5d ago

@ricci @dan @kstatz12 @steve That's the kind of critical thinking that earned me the diploma in the first place.

Rob Ricci 5d ago

@gparker @dan @kstatz12 @steve you mean earned you a sandwich

Greg Parker 5d ago

@ricci @dan @kstatz12 @steve actually no, mine was printed on a Fruit Roll-Up which all cultured people agree is not a sandwich.

Rob Ricci 5d ago

@gparker @dan @kstatz12 @steve not what that attitude, mister