Bureaucracy

Coming back from Japan, we had a wonderful example of bureaucracy and how it helps "improve" our lives. I had gone cheap on the fares and used Air Canada for the journey as it was almost half the price of Singapore Airlines; naturally there had to be some punishment to go along with this decision; apart from the staggeringly bad food on the Canadian flight that is.

We returned via Calgary with about a two-hour lay over - time enough for maybe a little walk around and some light refreshment. It was not to be, the bureaucrats were lying in wait for us.

Firstly, we had to fill in a form for the Canadian customs and immigration. On it I was forced to declare a rather tacky little six-inch ninja I had bought in Narita. We stood in line to be interviewed by an agent - it was rather pathetic considering we were only going to another gate - had these people never heard of a transit lounge? But worse was to follow. In it's wisdom, the US authorities had brought their service to Calgary to avoid long lines at LAX. (Not to avoid long lines - just ones at LAX!)

After filling up another form, we queued up with all the other people to be scrutinized, not by an agent but by a Canadian, who was there to look at our US immigration and customs declaration form. Naturally I had failed to put that day's date on it and I also put the incoming flight, not the outgoing - bad boy!

With passports and forms held high we lined up in the snake to zig-zag our way with the other thousands to the six agents to interview us. There were 12 booths but only half manned. A slightly fraught official lady was trying to jostle some passengers ahead of others so that their flights could leave on time.

We wound around the zig-zag and eventually reached a customs agent who somewhat sneered at my ninja declaration. He also seemed disappointed that we were not carrying any financial instruments over $10,000! Finally, we were through and with twenty minutes to spare - maybe time for a beer!


Oh no! Security; and very long lines before and after our documents were once again checked. Did no one tell these people that we were in the damned computer complete with our grandmothers' maiden names? Not only did we have our boarding cards read by some machine, we had to stand in a booth and be gawked at - I'm told it shows us naked! They really must be bereft of visual stimulation if they get anything out of my aged body!

Back to the line with our bags waiting. Naturally we looked very suspicious so all our luggage was gone over. The ninja was found. Tearing open the nice cardboard box, it was laid bare, complete with its small plastic sword! No way that could get through without someone agreeing. A supervisor was called. He looked at the offending article carefully and decided that it passed - just! We had to repack all our cases and then we had an entire five minutes to get to the plane. A real eye opener for how bureaucrats work. Lots of forms for useless information that is available with a click of the button.