"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
― Oscar Wilde

I am one of those poor saps who has not yet invested enough in CRO that I am free from having to deal with my government, its state actors or the old financial world that hasn't yet figured out that its cumbersome and curmudgeonly ways dating back to antiquity are not just slow and obsolete, but irrelevant. Consequently, there are the inefficiencies, inadequacies and ineptitudes of pencil-pushing civil servants with which I have to contend (instead of doing something productive with my day) on an annual basis (if not more frequently). The past two days are no  exception.

Today, I have finished spending two slow and frustrating afternoons sorting out the admin I needed to do yesterday in order to not fall foul of the law. (To paraphrase Hofstadter's law: Everything always takes longer than you think it will, even when you know it will take long.) It was as surreal (and, perhaps surprisingly, peculiarly funny) as a certain part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The government required me to provide proof of residence before I would be issued a vehicle license. To get that, I went to the bank to print a certified/verified account statement. Having got that document, I then went back to the bank to pick up my new card ... and used the newly-printed government-issued document to provide proof of residence. Neither institution will accept its own documents, but they're happy to accept each other's (even though I used one to get the other to issue something the first issuer then accepted). How's that for a ridiculous circular dependency?

I don't think I've quite got my head around it, to be frank, but at least I (hopefully) don't have to think more about it for another year. That's probably just as well; this type of thinking could do us in if it goes on too long. Maybe that's the intent: Fewer people with which to deal certainly seems like a desired objective for those who show no desire to be helpful or work with any sense of urgency.