Godfuck
Really and fucking truly, it was a waste of a day:
- The clerk refused the medical because the doctor didn’t tick a box to specify that I didn’t need a given vaccine.
They requested from me a form that I was specifically informed on the paperwork that I didn’t need, forcing me to out and wandering Ballsbridge in search of a net cafe to download it (to the lady in Jury’s: You are a lifesaver, if I knew your name I’d name my nextborn after you).
They requested paperwork from Mariah that I had already provided from her family. Again, she wasn’t supposed to need these papers.
First, I’m angry because of the manifest lack of help from the staff. To help someone is to take responsibility for one’s actions, right? If nothing else, it was a lesson for me in the danger’s on an entrenched bureaucracy. There was a lovely family I met there who were living in a very remote part of Galway. The father was Irish and the mother French, and both of them were naturalized US citizens. Because of this their son didn’t automatically gain US citizenship (as I understand it) or a US passport, as he was born in France, and both the French and Irish American embassies had kept the family running in circles as no one at either embassy was willing to take responsibility for their actions and take the five minutes to help them.
Second, I’m sad at the siege mentality on display at the embassy. I only spoke to one American the whole time I was there and she was (seemingly) a second-level clerk. The security guards were private contractors and all of the administrative staff I met were Irish. We were kept in a portacabin that was a safe distance from the embassy, after being searched, all our electronics quarantined and escorted by a guard at all times.
I’m sure that little four year old girl the guard roared at was actually a ninja who kept coils of shigawire in her hair.
I’m going to call the embassy in a few minutes to arrange a new interview.
/rant