The Bureaucratic nightmare!

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Domenica è sempre domenica

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By, Uwe Paschen.

Ever since the Roman Empire and of Course the Chinese one as well we seem to have been unable to live with out Bureaucrats of all sorts and in all domains.

Now, Bureaucracy does have its advantages such as fair tax collection and reinvesting those funds into Armies and Police to maintain order and piece, or am I mistaken here? Well just a wee bit sarcastic maybe. 

No, we do benefit from our well functioning Bureaucracy around the World, with Hospitals that work and roads that are well maintained as well as energy and food supplies and we do rely on those and even take them for granted at times.

There are only a few things really essential to life, such has good health, Food, Water and shelter, the rest are really in a way luxuries and those in large part thanks to our Bureaucracy, even if this one is rather based on artificial values and a power structure that can only exist due to obedience and out of fear to lose those extras to life.

I am used to work in disaster zones and solve problems, caused by Natural disasters or miss management or even viruses and bacteria's or fungus. Yet those are by far nothing compared to the problems Bureaucrats can cause and they are the most difficult one to have to deal with and to overcome.

I am actually no longer surprised that Homelessness is rising and unemployment as well. The economy is based on artificial values that have no longer any roots in reality nor logic for that matter. Even our environmental problem could be solved easily with some good will and restructuring. However all that won't happen thanks to our well functioning Bureaucracy in all domains from Politics to Banking they are the real power and they know it as well.

Now let me get back to the Bureaucratic Nightmare of mine, We used to live in Soka Shi, about 10 minutes from Tokyo where we rented an Apartment for the past few years. However we did buy a small Farm on the outer rim of Narita Shi in Chiba Prefecture once we moved to Japan permanently and I was fixing it and so on for some time now.

As we decided to move permanently to Narita and give up the Apartment in Soka we wanted to transfer all mail, Phone, Internet and so on to our Farm in Narita and that by it self that does sounds easy. It should be yes, however not if the Bureaucrats get involved and fail to understand the process or to think logically, even less once they get upset with you. 

Now, we did have some major problem, such as flash floods and minor earth quakes in the past 6 weeks  causing some inconvenience and destruction forcing us to rebuild in part and spend some times with out the luxuries of life, such as running water and showers or heat, and this in winter is not such a pleasant inconvenience at all.

However the worth of all this by far was the Bureaucratic nightmare we where in of simply reconnecting a phone line and re-establishing internet and this in a high tech and competitive country such as Japan did even stunned me.

It took us 4 weeks to get re connected to the phone lines and have internet and all this could have been avoided if it had not been for a Bureaucratic road bloc of sorts.

No numbers where available any longer, even though we had a phone number just before the flash flood. No Internet connection was possible once we established and proved that there where more then enough numbers available and that we do already have one as well. Yet the installation could not be done because the lines where to old and to far from the Farm. As we proved that the lines had been recently updated and with in rage of the Farm then we could still not have a phone nor internet because they needed more power and cables. It took another week to convince the Bureaucrats that a phone only needed two cables and Internet could work on a dial up as well.

Once after some major and some times heated discussions we could finally get our phone and internet back up, however not before another month since the team to instal all this was to busy and could not be dispatched before December 2008.

After I offered my services to do it my self and for free, we finally had a team of busy bees that fixed and reconnected every thing and put us back on line, at the same time I had to deal with flood damage and rebuilding a Bath room and Kitchen so my Wife would not go on strike and move out. 

What amazed me the most in all this is that we live in Japan, a highly sophisticated and efficient industrial Country and not in the middle of Antarctica where even satellite Communication can be difficult to establish. 

All this has deepen my profound appreciation for our Bureaucracy and its Bureaucrats to a point that I am thinking to move to Antarctica and probably would have all ready some time ago if it was not so cold there and if Civilization did not have the bonus of the  conveniences we enjoy, especially the Hot Showers that I missed dearly.  

After publishing this Article, I may have to fear my next encounter with the Bureaucrats, wish will be unavoidable.