Working the system

When I was traveling through Europe after college, I remember trying to send a package home from Rome. Navigating the Italian post office was a bureaucratic and inefficient nightmare. I needed a form that was only available at one office and the boxes were only available at a different office, but the first office took 2 hour lunches and then closed one hour after lunch and the second office was on strike. And all the while depending on buses that only sometimes arrived when they were supposed to. In any case, I managed to send the package home though it did mean cutting out two days of travel.

These days I’m grateful for that experience because it prepared me for the bureaucratic roadblocks I experience whenever I need or want something here. Take for instance, parking at the medical school. The main parking lot has been closed for renovations and construction for months, but I was happily informed yesterday that it will open in a week and a half. I nearly jumped for joy. This would mean that I will no longer have to arrive in the office an hour before everyone else simply to get a good street parking spot so I don’t worry all day about my car getting broken into. So I literally skipped all the way to the parking office and filled out the application. At that point, the guy told me I needed to pay first…. at a different office in a different building. This did not shake my good mood and I sauntered off to pay, then sauntered back to him with my receipt. Only at this point, did he take one look at my University of Kwazulu-Natal ID and go, “Oh, I didn’t realize your ID says student. Students are not allowed to park in the new parking lot. Only employees.” My smile began to falter as I tried to explain that I wasn’t actually a student here, I was more like an employee—a researcher, to be exact—and thus, I should be allowed. But the man would not budge, simply pointing to the ID he himself had made for me one week ago. “I understand you’re not a student, but the computer says you’re a student. Thus I cannot give you a parking permit.” As a whole number of expletives crowded the once sunny thoughts in my mind, I sulked all the way back to my office and my friends to ask them what I should do in the face of this newest South African roadblock. We are still in the brainstorming segment of this latest episode of “How to bypass South African bureaucracy!” But stay tuned, we just might figure out how to get me secured parking at work. I have faith.

In addition to this issue, there’s been the matter of my Health Professions Council of South Africa application. Basically, this council is the one that grants me permission to touch patients. I can observe all I want on rounds and such, but when it comes to data collection and actually placing my hands on a patient, I have to wait for approval from this council. This has been another hullabaloo of signatures from these persons, stamps from that office and don’t forget the notarized (excuse me, commissioned) copy of your passport plus a bank note showing you paid us for the application fee, thank you very much. It finally got couriered to Jo-burg this morning so hopefully in a month’s time, I will be able to touch a patient.