Not unlike most people, I have a high disdain for bureaucracy. Having lived in Russia and Ukraine, I got my fair share of the post-Soviet Soviet-style bureaucracy to last me a life-time. It’s good to day that in the commercial sector, Russia is catching up. In the gov’t sector, it’s as bad as always. The reason that bureaucracy is sucky, is the fact that the people working in those areas are, as a rule: spiteful, lazy, apathetic, have a general disdain for those that they are serving, and/or a mixture of the above. They are too important in their respective positions to do what they are there to do with the least bit of humanity. And it’s not just Russia.
My wife is at home in Moscow right now visiting her mom and dad, who is failing fast. When she got her new passport, a note was attached saying that she was to appear at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and get a stamp on the 3rd page of her new passport somehow connecting it with her internal passport (good example of stupid, asinine Russian bureaucracy), or risk not being let out of the country. So upon arrival, she immediately went to the MFA to get her stamp. When she got her passport back, she (being a worrier of sorts) asked the lady there if the stamp was on the right page. The lady looked at her and instead of being polite, or being polite and looking said, “And if it’s not?” to which my wife said, “According to your documentation, if it’s not on the right page, they wont let me leave.” to which the reply came, “If they don’t let you go, it’ll be for some other reason.” Now that’s the Russia I’ve come to know and love.
Fast forward a couple weeks. Yesterday, I went to pass on a whole slew of documents to attempt to get medicaid-disabled for Misha. My wife being out of town, I had the 4 kids with me. While I was there, I asked my kids to behave, which of course they didn’t. When I went to turn in the documents, the two young women at the desk were chatting away, not doing anything else. The one who graced me with her attention told me to make copies of the documents and to write the case number on every sheet. So while I did that, my kids are bouncing off the walls. Asya was trying to keep Misha happy, which he wasn’t sitting in his stroller and Kiril and Dasha were being the circular catalysts of terror that they tend to be in these situations. When I finally got done, the other girl took the documents and said, “Oh, the case number is already here. Cool.” The other girl said, “Yah, I told HIM to do it, so I wouldn’t have to.” At that point, I was ready to spit nails and use some nasty language. If I was alone turning in the documentation, it would be one thing. But whereas I was trying to do this with 3 kids and a baby and as they were sitting on their posteriors doing nothing whatsoever, and considering they evidentially do this themselves (I believe they even had a stamp to do it for them), I somewhat pissed me off. Apathy and laziness. Whatta way to run the govt.
