I hate bureaucracy

You probably won't want to read this. Really.



Here it is anyhow.

Kevin Carson, commenting on my experiences with MacService: "It sounds like, despite all the courteous, helpful people who do great jobs individually, there are too many of them to communicate effectively with each other and get the relevant information to the person who needs it. In other words, they're like about every other large corporation."

I'm thinking right now of all those courteous, helpful people I'm dealing with as I try and import my schnauzer into Taiwan. OK, many Taiwanese officials are neither of those things. But once I obtained the import permit from those monkies, I thought my problems were 90% over. That is, all I had to do was to obtain a health certificate from my courteous, helpful vet, get it mailed by the courteous, helpful assistant to the (undoubtedly) courteous, helpful USDA official in Raleigh and get it back in good time so that I can fly out on Saturday. (By the way, in case you wonder why I didn't obtain this document earlier, the Taiwanese people pretty much sprung this on me last-minute.)

Unfortunately, the USDA website seems to be out of date -- by three years. The assistance sent the certificate to the old building, now no longer in existence. The USDA official, who is indeed courteous and helpful, assured me that the carbon copy of the health certificate in my possession was good enough, and that if I make the drive to Raleigh with everything I would be OK. Until he talked to his (I'll bet courteous and helpful) college and told me this morning that -- oops! The carbon copy is not good enough after all. I have to go to my vet again, which I would have been glad to do yesterday, but completely leaves me in a bind today.

GHARRRRRRRRRRRGH!