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And you thought OUR bureaucrats rot?!
Iconoclast
Member Posts: 10,515 ✭✭✭
I'm not going into all the details, but my wife had to make an emergency trip to Russia to attend her father's funeral. Her Russian passport expired after she arrived (we'd planned to renew it at the NYC Consulate, but the unexpected death short-circuited that idea. Now she's there and must get a new passport to return. No big deal, right? Wrong!! Her name in the first passport is different because of the marriage. They won't accept a US marriage certificate unless it has some UN-sanctioned official stamp on it. So, I have spent a few days chasing that down and enriching FedEx to have it to her in time to make her return flight. Oops, not yet! Now you need to prove your work history so we can be sure you really are the person on this passport, not some spy. They have a document similar to a passport in size in which all your jobs are listed. Of course that, also, was here. Another $70 to FedEx. Meanwhile, they are running my stepson through a similar wringer. We allowed six weeks because we knew it would be a battle to get through all the normal BS, but this is a few extra helpings. Of course, things get better once a bottle, a carton of cigarettes or some greenbacks are attached to the papers. Things are the same there; what has changed is my family's perspective on the propriety of it. After dealing with people here who - sometimes - make an effort to help out, the same old, same old over there just doesn't cut it!
This is the third time we've had to deal with some such nonsense in four years, twice when time was limited. If this sort of thing were routine here, bureaucrats would be an endangered species, and rightfully so.
This is the third time we've had to deal with some such nonsense in four years, twice when time was limited. If this sort of thing were routine here, bureaucrats would be an endangered species, and rightfully so.