Waiting...and goats.

Such a long day.

Today was my day to register with the Foreign Registration Office, which will henceforth be referred to as the FRO. 

My day starts, like any terrible day, with an early alarm…5:50am early.  I woke up at 5:50 so I could get ready and be on my way at 7:00, for an appointment at 9:00.  Upon arrival to the FRO I went to the front desk where I was handed papers to fill out.  I was not actually required to fill out any paperwork, as my employer hired a company to take care of all the formalities for me.  I discovered after 10 seconds of trying to explain this that the man at the front desk didn’t understand a word of what I was saying.  Let’s take a step back and look at this situation for a second.

The man, at the front desk of the Foreign Registration Office; the man who greets and guides every foreigner that travels to Bangalore, could not speak English.  Hundreds of foreigners, with English as their only common language go to this office to complete their Visa registration, and the FRO puts someone at the front desk, who can only speak Hindi.  Fantastic.

Anyways, people from the company finally show up, with all the papers I would have needed neat, organized and completed.  After waiting for a bit I was called up to the first desk, where they go over my paperwork and give be another sheet, to be filled in by the people upstairs.  So I then proceeded upstairs where I had to, big surprise, wait again.  When I was finally called up to the next desk I was told I had to write and sign a short note explaining why a failed to register within thirteen days of arrival.  After doing this I went back up to the desk, where I was told to go see the manager who would sign my note.  After waiting more for him I finally went in and got my note signed, wahoo!  This allowed me to go back to the previous desk, where I had to wait again because he started helping someone else.  After waiting again I was finally helped and he looked over my paperwork, just like the guys at the first desk on the first floor did, stamped something and sent me to another desk.  At the next desk I had to; you guessed it…wait again.  Once the waiting was over, the lady helping me looked over my papers, again, and filled out the sheet I received earlier.  She referred me the fourth of five desks on the opposite side of the room.  All these desks performed the same task, but of course I was assigned to one of the two that were busy, so I had to wait…again.  When I was called to the desk the woman helping me could not have been nicer.  Unfortunately she had to give me the worst news.  Due to my late registration I was required to pay a $30 fine.  This is all well and good, except they don’t take cash, or card.  I had to walk to the nearest International bank so I could pay them, with a premium added on, and they could give me a check.  Oh yeah and there was a good amount of waiting involved at the bank.  When I returned I had to wait a bit more and then go to a different desk where my check would be processed.  From there I had to go back to the fourth desk where I finally, and without an additional wait, received my registration certificate.  I was done…finally. 

            Now I could just sit back and relax.  The only problem was that it was only noon and I told my boss I would go in to work.  So, around 1pm I arrived, tired and cranky.  I said some hellos and proceeded straight to lunch.  For the remainder of the work day I did some polishing of my template project, and read news relevant to the company…until 3:30.  At 3:30 I was called in for the weekly operations conference call.  In this call, the operations team, me and two other people, host a conference call that every team, there’s like 40 has to call in to and give an update of their issues, progress, etc.  This, painful, agonizing, hair pullingly boring call lasted for three hours.  Three hours of the same questions to every team.  It wouldn’t be so bad if everyone knew how to talk into a phone, but people mumbled, people shouted, people rushed, and people dragged on, and on.  Plus they did all this with a thick India accent.  I gave myself credit for being able to hear and recognize three quarters of what was said, different story trying to understand what any of it meant though.

            After this my boss was gracious enough to let me go home.  So, here I lie, on my bed, typing about this day because if I can, in anyway, transfer even the slightest ounce of my exhaustion to some one else I will do it.  A good substitute is always pity, something highly underrated in society; I welcome your pity.

Today’s lesson, lack of sleep and excessive waiting lead to homicidal thoughts.

You’re welcome,

x

P.S. Forgot to tell you, I saw a lot of goats running around in the streets by the FRO, kinda funny.