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Tag: bureaucracy

Ire in Cairo

14 January, 2020

A description of a vacation I took to Egypt in 1991/1992, by way of a letter of complaint.

Antisocial Insecurity

13 July, 2017

I know people claiming social security are sometimes seen as jobless spongers who are just too lazy to get a job, but based on my recent experience, getting the Social Security Administration to actually give you money is more work than an actual job. Allow me to explain. For reasons we don’t need to get […]

Democracy: Too important to be left to the people

28 February, 2012

There was a report in the newspaper recently on a bridge in Slovakia being named after Chuck Norris. Apparently local officials had put it to a popular vote, and (at the time of writing) 74% of people had voted to call it the Chuck Norris Bridge, outvoting a local historical figure by a huge margin. […]

They should rename it the Hindrance-Desk

24 August, 2010

As Training Lead, one of my responsibilities is to provide User Procedures for the system we’re implementing. Because users have a nasty habit of taking my official global User Procedures and changing them to match what they want to do, I publish them in Adobe PDF format. And because I generate all of the User […]

Stimulate, my arse!

7 July, 2008

Over here in God’s Chosen Countryâ„¢, the economy is going down the pan.  You can see it on the news, sense it on the streets, and feel it in in your wallet.  Everything is more expensive, from gas to a gallon of milk (or from petrol to a pint of milk, if you prefer) so […]

Bureaucracy: Belgium’s greatest export

1 June, 2007

I thought that I’d left all of the bureaucracy behind when I left Belgium earlier this year, but no.  It seems that not content with foisting their arcane machinations on the rest of Europe, the Belgians have now set their sights on the global stage. On July 15th, a new law will come into effect […]

(F)utility services

26 January, 2007

Sigh. It looks as though my hope for a painless re-integration into American living may be a tad naive.  I’m back in Brussels and, having found a house in the U.S., am now trying to get everything connected for when I move in, in a couple of week’s time. First up was the electricity supply.  […]

The Joy of Driving (Or Not)…Belgian Style

3 May, 2005

Nowadays, a car is pretty much a necessity.  And just about everyone here in Belgium has one.  So why do the Belgians make getting a car on the road such a difficult, lengthy, and truly exasperating process?  Here’s what I had to go through… When you buy a car (even a second hand one – […]

Born Free, But You’ll Pay To Prove It…

16 March, 2005

We’re finally back in Belgium, and going through all of the requisite administrative steps to register ourselves here.  Given that Belgium is home to the EU, it should come as no surprise that it boasts world-class bureaucracy.  Here’s an example of Belgian bureaucracy at it’s finest… When you move into a house here (Belgium) you […]



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