Friday, December 23, 2005

Faceless bureaucrats: a faceless bureaucrat salutes you!

It's been an odd day.

I started by setting off for the Indian High Commission to get my visa for the forthcoming family wedding in Mumbai. Just as I was leaving Peckham, I realised that I had left my passport at home (duh...). So I went home, collected the passport and headed for India House, at Aldwych. I get to the window, form completed, money and photographs ready, only to be told that my passport, good for another five years, cannot be used as there are no blank pages left (that'll teach me to travel, won't it...).

What to do? No choice but to head to the Passport Agency at Victoria, with dread in my heart. It's three days before Christmas, millions of people are leaving the country, I'm bound to be there all day, aren't I? To my immense surprise, I turn up, am given a form to complete, which takes about two minutes, given an appointment within five minutes, hand over the forms and am told that my passport will be ready in four hours. Oh and yes, I don't have to hang around, just pay for it and come and collect it any time between 4.30 and 8.45. I hand over my credit card to give them £104.50 and off to my office. At 8.30 I return. The passport is ready, there's no queue and I'm on my way.

Haven't these people heard of making life difficult for the public? Why is the building well-maintained, efficient and comfortable? Why are the staff pleasant and helpful? I bet that there hasn't been a prominent article to say how good they are, yet there were plenty when the new computer systems went sour a few years back. But I forget, the public sector is horribly inefficient (as the Daily Mail keeps reminding us) and the whole thing should be contracted out to an Turks and Caicos Islands registered company owned by former Tory Ministers and 'employing' young children in a sweat shop somewhere in Burma...

Anyway, many thanks from a faceless bureaucrat to my fellow inmates in the UK Passport Agency...

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