Wrong police and the wrong time.
Sometimes I do love the sheer bureaucratic idiocy of the country in which I live!
Today was the day when the visit to the police could be delayed no further and the denunciation was to be made official.
The School That Sacked Me has refused through letter, email, telephone call and direct enquiry to respond with any information about what has happened to the money raised for the Burma disaster fund last June.
Any reasonable person (let alone me!) would assume that the militant silence was covering something not to the credit of the school. I have decided to assume the worst and let the police sort it out.
Armed with copies of my eloquently insulting emails and a summary of the details of the ‘case’ and accompanied by my ‘translator’ I went into the local police station. Alas ‘police’ doesn’t mean ‘police’ because I had gone to the police but I needed the ‘police.’ Luckily armed with a translator and a map we were able to drive a short distance and find the correct building which housed the correct type of police.
Our enquiries produced a child dressed in a police uniform who informed us that we had found the right type of ‘police’ but we had not found the right type of ‘time’ to see the right type of ‘police.’
It would be better, we were told, if we could come back in an hour of so, or tomorrow even.
It would appear that crime of a certain sort cannot take place officially between the hours of one and three in this part of Spain – even with the right sort of ‘police.’
We are rescheduled for tomorrow so that I keep my word of getting the denunciation in this week. I can only guess at the way that the ‘police’ will go about getting the information and my translator said that they probably wouldn’t let me know what they did or didn’t do – and there I no likelihood of The School That Sacked Me ever (and I mean EVER) contacting me again. I will have to live in hope that my spies in the camp will be able to enlighten me if any police activity is seen.
I am told that the atmosphere in The School That Sacked Me can be cut with a knife and that it has reached new levels of negativity.
You have to have worked in the place to realise just how horrific that idea is and how essentially improbable any further descent into a deeper hell of professional managerial chaos that already exists can possibly be achieved.
Sometimes I do love the sheer bureaucratic idiocy of the country in which I live!
Today was the day when the visit to the police could be delayed no further and the denunciation was to be made official.
The School That Sacked Me has refused through letter, email, telephone call and direct enquiry to respond with any information about what has happened to the money raised for the Burma disaster fund last June.
Any reasonable person (let alone me!) would assume that the militant silence was covering something not to the credit of the school. I have decided to assume the worst and let the police sort it out.
Armed with copies of my eloquently insulting emails and a summary of the details of the ‘case’ and accompanied by my ‘translator’ I went into the local police station. Alas ‘police’ doesn’t mean ‘police’ because I had gone to the police but I needed the ‘police.’ Luckily armed with a translator and a map we were able to drive a short distance and find the correct building which housed the correct type of police.
Our enquiries produced a child dressed in a police uniform who informed us that we had found the right type of ‘police’ but we had not found the right type of ‘time’ to see the right type of ‘police.’
It would be better, we were told, if we could come back in an hour of so, or tomorrow even.
It would appear that crime of a certain sort cannot take place officially between the hours of one and three in this part of Spain – even with the right sort of ‘police.’
We are rescheduled for tomorrow so that I keep my word of getting the denunciation in this week. I can only guess at the way that the ‘police’ will go about getting the information and my translator said that they probably wouldn’t let me know what they did or didn’t do – and there I no likelihood of The School That Sacked Me ever (and I mean EVER) contacting me again. I will have to live in hope that my spies in the camp will be able to enlighten me if any police activity is seen.
I am told that the atmosphere in The School That Sacked Me can be cut with a knife and that it has reached new levels of negativity.
You have to have worked in the place to realise just how horrific that idea is and how essentially improbable any further descent into a deeper hell of professional managerial chaos that already exists can possibly be achieved.
I can’t help feeling that some idiot savant mathematician would have had a field day with the way we sat in the pharmacy waiting area the day before yesterday.
For we people with repeat prescriptions the trek to the pharmacy is monthly where, on presentation of one’s health card (see previous blogs for the epic story of getting the bloody thing) the recipient taps away on a computer and produces the necessary prescriptions for a month’s worth of drugs.
For the summer one is given prescriptions for two months to allow for holiday absence to cover the time when you might need to get more away from the source. Although there are now indications that the two monthly supply will become normal. Who knows, no one tells us anything!
Anyway: seating. Once or twice I have just gone to the door of the pharmacy and walked in. I understand now that was extraordinary luck. The normal procedure is to sit and wait in the open corridor of fixed chairs which stretch the entire length of the corridor.
Where people sit on the thirty or forty chairs is obviously governed by the Higher Mathematics and not logic. I have learned over time that the correct approach to finding a seat starts with approaching the immediate vicinity of the pharmacist’s room and then asking, ¿Último? in a generally vague interrogatory way and then waiting for someone to raise their hand to indicate that they are the last.
That is the signal to sit down. Logically, if there is a spare place next to the person who has put up their hand then that is where you should sit. But nobody does this. Nobody. Why?
The arrangement of chairs means that at least half of the people cannot see the other half and since the entrance to the pharmacy is at the end of the corridor people have to keep turning round to check that they take up their turn.
Logically again, all you have to do is ensure that you can see the person who was last when you came in when you are sitting down. But people don’t do that either. Why not?
It gives the whole area an air of suppressed panic as each person becomes paranoid about missing their turn. I do not jest: I was there once when someone tried to get in early – there was very nearly a riot and one woman commented loudly and at length on the evil nature of mankind and the ‘pusher-in’ in particular for the whole duration of her continued wait. To my horror I was drawn into the general conversation by a man on my right to whose question I responded with a rueful smile and a sardonic “¡Hombre!” which seemed to satisfy him and the rest.
Some people merely give up when they see the number of people waiting and slope off in the hope of a more limited queue on their return. Some sit a long way off as if there should be a sort of cordon sanitaire between them and the ordinary waiters. Some sit and look as though they are waiting for a doctor behind another of the doors in the corridor. And most of us must do some sort of evaluative computation and sit where we will.
For the record I sat three rows in front of the ‘last’ person with my back to her. Other spaces were available. I wonder what went through my mind.
While I was waiting my mind was taken up with the latest Saki book on my e-book reader.
Never let it be said that I failed to utilise any spare moments with cultural improvement!
For we people with repeat prescriptions the trek to the pharmacy is monthly where, on presentation of one’s health card (see previous blogs for the epic story of getting the bloody thing) the recipient taps away on a computer and produces the necessary prescriptions for a month’s worth of drugs.
For the summer one is given prescriptions for two months to allow for holiday absence to cover the time when you might need to get more away from the source. Although there are now indications that the two monthly supply will become normal. Who knows, no one tells us anything!
Anyway: seating. Once or twice I have just gone to the door of the pharmacy and walked in. I understand now that was extraordinary luck. The normal procedure is to sit and wait in the open corridor of fixed chairs which stretch the entire length of the corridor.
Where people sit on the thirty or forty chairs is obviously governed by the Higher Mathematics and not logic. I have learned over time that the correct approach to finding a seat starts with approaching the immediate vicinity of the pharmacist’s room and then asking, ¿Último? in a generally vague interrogatory way and then waiting for someone to raise their hand to indicate that they are the last.
That is the signal to sit down. Logically, if there is a spare place next to the person who has put up their hand then that is where you should sit. But nobody does this. Nobody. Why?
The arrangement of chairs means that at least half of the people cannot see the other half and since the entrance to the pharmacy is at the end of the corridor people have to keep turning round to check that they take up their turn.
Logically again, all you have to do is ensure that you can see the person who was last when you came in when you are sitting down. But people don’t do that either. Why not?
It gives the whole area an air of suppressed panic as each person becomes paranoid about missing their turn. I do not jest: I was there once when someone tried to get in early – there was very nearly a riot and one woman commented loudly and at length on the evil nature of mankind and the ‘pusher-in’ in particular for the whole duration of her continued wait. To my horror I was drawn into the general conversation by a man on my right to whose question I responded with a rueful smile and a sardonic “¡Hombre!” which seemed to satisfy him and the rest.
Some people merely give up when they see the number of people waiting and slope off in the hope of a more limited queue on their return. Some sit a long way off as if there should be a sort of cordon sanitaire between them and the ordinary waiters. Some sit and look as though they are waiting for a doctor behind another of the doors in the corridor. And most of us must do some sort of evaluative computation and sit where we will.
For the record I sat three rows in front of the ‘last’ person with my back to her. Other spaces were available. I wonder what went through my mind.
While I was waiting my mind was taken up with the latest Saki book on my e-book reader.
Never let it be said that I failed to utilise any spare moments with cultural improvement!
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