This week I Mona and I needed to get Sara her first passport. We opted for a temporary passport because it’s faster and we didn’t need to go with her to the passport office – these government establishments are not known for their child-friendliness and comfort (not in Romania anyway).
A picture was all we needed to take (see above!!!), make some declarations and collect the passport later that same day.
A Passport Story
Several hours we waited in a hot, crowded hallway with no sign of even rudimentary organisation such as a queue (yes, we British love to queue!). Eventually we were sitting in front of a uniformed lady who checked our documents and entered some details into the computer.
Then she passed me a form to sign and told me to write a declaration that I agreed, as a British citizen, for Sara to be issued with a Romanian passport.
No problem.
Except she wanted the declaration in Romanian – a language I know virtually nothing about.
The solution was easy, Mona wrote out the sentence and I copied it onto the form. I had a few challenges with Mona’s handwriting but managed to reproduce it to the satisfaction of the passport-issuing-lady. She told us to go to a different office in 2 hours to collect the passport.
I’ve learned over the years that most bureaucratic institutions are based on a platform of form filling and neatly segregated into jobs inhabited by people who rarely communicate with one another. As an example, we needed to make three small payments for the passport with each paid to a separate segment of the civil service. Each segment operated a separate bank account, each with a different banks. This meant trips to the three banks with no chance of one-stop banking as we needed the proof of payment stamped by each of the three banks.
As you can maybe tell, I was building up a picture in my mind of a highly inefficient, illogical and confusing system designed to make things as difficult as possible for the average person. Kafka’s writing come alive!
A Story Of Stupidity …
Final part of the story.
Back to collect the passport at the appointed hour and more confusion, still no queues, still crowds of people and still very hot.
Two hours after the appointed time we’re called to the front to face the passport- issuing-officer, a slightly rotund lady in a crisp uniform. Beside her is another lady telling us that the declaration (the one I wrote out in my very best Romanian) was incomplete and I need to add a sentence stating that I both speak and write Romanian fluently.
Hmmmm!
Mona stands next to me and spells out letter by letter what I need to write down with me following her instructions as best I can, feeling not a little intimidated by the massed crowd watching every stroke of the pen, to say nothing of the two officials not half a metre in front of me.
We hand over the form and receive our passport in exchange and I’m almost hysterical inside at the craziness of the system and the stupidity of these two people. It was obvious I didn’t know Romanian, yet here they were telling me to write a declaration we all knew to be false so they had their precious forms completed correctly.
I left the place intent on telling everyone how stupid these people are.
But Who Was Being Stupid?
Last night I joint hosted our first discussion group as part of our LightWork initiative. The topic for the evening was ‘How to make space for Kindness at work’. Half way through the discussion I suddenly realised something.
Those ladies in the passport office were not stupid at all.
What they did was to offer an act of kindness in turning a blind eye to my language deficiency. It was kindness to help us through the system so we could have our passport. It was kindness that pushed them to bend the rules which in many ways define their work. It was kindness that allowed them a simple human touch of understanding and generosity.
Without their kindness we would not yet have a passport for Sara. We would not be on our way today to the UK for Sara to visit her family there for the first time. We would be somewhat poorer after hiring a sworn translator, having everything translated for me at a notary office and having to change our flights to the UK.
And I missed it!
I interpreted this act of kindness as stupidity.
Who’s the stupid one?
An Apology
So dear passport-issuing-ladies.
I am deeply sad that I not only didn’t notice your act of kindness but that I went further and interpreted it so negatively. I would like you to know that I now see what happened more clearly and I am very grateful to you both.
And I want to apologise to all those people who have ever offered me an act of kindness I was too arrogant and stupid to see. I wish I could have noticed your beautiful act.
I am deeply embarrassed as I’m sure there are many of you out there.
