Bureaucracy

It is incredible to observe how we have become entangled in our own rules. They were established to create order, but by now we are long past order: our rules have become a waste of time and money, or, in a word: nonsense. There are so many examples to give from personal experience alone that I could fill a few pages with it. Now, I'm not going to do that, but one recent one may be worth mentioning.

In the Netherlands, the IB Group provides student grants. When you obtain just about any diploma of a three- or four-year course within ten years of starting your studies, you are aquitted of your debts with the IB Group. Should you not obtain a valid diploma within ten years, you have to pay back your student loan. I have been studying for about 6 years and by now I'm doing my third course, and I have two years to go before I'm officially a Bachelor of Translation. I am going to finish this no matter what. Not only because because I want and need this diploma to get ahead in life, but mainly because I have to pay back about € 8000 of student loans if I fail. So I have four more years to obtain my diploma, right?

Right... Only I received a letter from the IB Group saying I needed to start paying back my loan starting 1 January 2011. What?! So I replied saying I called them before I started my current course and that they told me the diploma obtained after completing this course would indeed settle my debts. But it appears I was still somewhat ignorant of the prevailing hypocritical bureaucratic ways of this country, and I didn't get this in writing. Now I cannot prove that they gave me "permission" to start this course. It taught me that you need to be able to prove everything in this wretched society, or...well...you're fucked.

Anyway, in my reply I also asked them to rescind this charge of me needing to start paying back the loan, and I gave them some other relevant information about my school and in what year I would probably obtain my diploma and all. And what do you think happens? It takes them about 2.5 months to reply and in this letter they tell me they'll see about if this diploma will aquit me from my debts and if I can please send them a certified copy.

....Huh? I just told them I had to study for two more years! And now they're asking me to send them the diploma I don't even have yet, which I told them loud and clear. In other words: it took them over 2 months to reply and they didn't even really read my letter, or they wouldn't have sent me this bogus reply.

So I replied once again, generally just expressing my indignation about their ridiculous message (I tried to be nice but it's hard when they're a bunch of lunatics in charge of your financial future) and simply repeating my initial questions. For some reason, this has to be done by mail, as if they haven't yet discovered the benefits of e-mail, which everyone but poor shepherds in countries I know hardly anything about have already found to be one hell of a step forward. So I also gave them my e-mail address again, though this will probably have been in vain.

I am curious as to how this will end. Will they send me a ridiculous letter every 2.5 months that doesn't answer any questions and doesn't help anyone, and thus take a year to resolve this? Or will it take a year without it being resolved, resulting in me having to pay back the € 8000 loan over the next ten years because at the time I didn't yet see the necessity of getting everything down in writing, signed and all, ignorant as I was of our bullshit government?

These are some expensive lessons, it would seem... Or maybe I'll get lucky.

So what is it that's happening? I'll tell you. So many rules were invented that everything needs to be proven, resulting in no one believing each other any more. And even if some employee you're dealing with believes you, this doesn't matter, because without any written proof, you're not going to get anywhere, and this employee is an irrelevant cog in the machine. But mostly it resulted in employees having to observe these rules not caring anymore. They don't give a shit what happens to the guy they're talking to on the phone, who is just a file to them, with problems that "someone else" will have to sort out (pretty obvious loop, though..). And so you get reconnected to six different departments when you call to resolve something (which will probably be about a problem they created by screwing up something or purposely robbing you by including some crazy rule in their general conditions (which no one ever reads, which they know)), costing you a fortune in telephone charges and precious time. And not resolving the issue at hand either.

Et cetera.

I could go on and on about this. But I'm afraid I have to go, because there is this one piece of paper with this one specific number on it that I need to prove something to some company, and since if I can't find it, I'll have to call them and say I lost it, and they will charge me € 13.50 in administration costs. Meaning they will have to think up a new number and give it to me.

Indeed, that is worth € 13.50.