Professional Online Magazine: July 2009

Tool my afternoon off yesterday to Visit our Friendly and Efficient Home Affairs Department in Alberton to apply for Megan's Unabridged Birth Certificate.Firstly, I went to the wrong office. I went to the Department of Labour where you register for the UIF - stoopid me - stood in a queue for half an hour to be told this. *sigh*. The Labour Lady directed me to the correct offices, which she explained was only about 200 meters up the road. I decided to leave my car where it was parked (as parking in Alberton Voortrekker Road is always a nightmare) so I thought I’ll keep my secure parking spot and just walk up the road.Wrong move!!!By the time I got there (more like 1km down the road), my feet and toes were throbbing all over again after the 702 Discovery WALK THE TALK on Sunday. Urgh! Anyway small price to pay and when I went inside, I was pleased to see that the queues were not that long.However, I did have to stand in 5 different queues…I went to the Enquiries desk first to be told to go to another queue for the Birth Certificates. When I got to the front of that queue I was told I had to complete another two forms – back to the enquiries queue for those forms and to complete them. One of the forms is an avidavat stating your relationship to the applicant / child – Mother - surely that would be enough? No, then the question they asked made me burst out laughing.“and you know this because ________________________”It took me a while to think about how to complete this. So how does a mother know that her daughter is actually her child? Erm, well, firstly I was in labour for 5½ hours and have the episiotomy to show for it? I remember that the pain was slightly worse than a paper cut? Yip, I remember now….I distinctly recall pushing a 2.6kg baby through my fanny, Mr Home Affairs.So, I finally completed : “because I gave birth to her!”. *shakes head* Don’t you hate idiotic government forms and red tape? I thought to myself is this REALLY necessary?? Probably not, but if I don’t complete all the details, I will probably received a phone call in two months time to tell me my application was rejected because I had failed to complete the forms correctly. When in Rome do as the Romans do.The other form was every little details about my child, the pregnancy and the birth: whether I smoked, drank or took drugs during my pregnancy. Whether I gave birth to her vaginally or via c-section, whether she needed an assisted birth with forceps or vacuum…. I kid you not!!! So I humoured them - I completed all the various irrelevant information about Megan’s birth weight, what was her apgar scores were and whether she still alive or not. Would I be applying otherwise?Have you forgotten yet what my application was actually for??I mean I had my original ID with me, Riaan’s ID and Megan’s original birth certificate and now I have to waste my time completing forms like this – that have NO relevance whatsoever.Anyway, so back in the queue with idiotic forms fully completed and getting really irritated, I finally get to the front of the queue and the lady - Yvonne Moloi – I am not protecting anyone’s identity here…doesn’t even LOOK at my forms but stacks my three application forms together in a neat little pile and tries to staple them together – no staples! She proceeds to disappear under the counter for 20 seconds *lots of mumbling* looking for staples to fill her stapler. Eventually she immerged with a little bank bag which she slowly and carefully opens, (NO SENSE OF URGENCY HERE!!) removes one string of staples, closes the little Ziploc bank bag and double checks its closed again and disappears under the counter again. The staples finally get put in the stapler and she manages to staple my three sheets of paper together – only to be told to go to the Cashier to pay my R70 for the services.Another queue!The cashier was actually reading the YOU magazine between clients! No smiles were exchanged with her. This is a very serious business, you see. I paid my R70, making sure I had the “WRITE AMOUNT OF MONEY” like the sign said. They can’t even spell, avoiding any more delays. I was told by the soopa friendly and enthusiastic Cashier to go back to Yvonne Moloi to process my forms. Do you detect sarcasm in my tone? HmmmmWhat? Are you insane? Do I have to stand in that queue AGAIN?? I just came from there?!?!?. I was obviously thinking this – not saying it out loud. If I had, I’m sure they would’ve shunted me to yet another queue. Perhaps to the shrivelled old little man sitting underneath the sign that read; “Finger Prints Done Here”. He looked like a piece of leather and about 90 (in the shade) and I actually recognised him from when I applied for my new ID when I got married 10 years ago!! Gosh, had that wee man actually moved from that exactly spot since then? Yes, that is his one and only job and he’s probably been doing it since he was about 10 years old. How stimulating can that be? Poor bugger.So, yes back to the story, I kept my big mouth shut and stood back in Yvonne Moloi’s queue for her to process my forms. When I got to the front of the queue she looked at my receipt, put my forms on a massive pile of applications and said “be sure to check only after 2 months”. So much for processing…I was gobsmacked! Is this how our country is run? All these unnecessary jobs for people who look for staples, stack papers or take fingers prints as their sole key performance? No wonder our country is in this state…2½ hours later I was out of there and walking the 1km back to my car.I then stopped off at the Union Hospital as I had promised Megan to drop a card off that she had made for one of her Teachers who was a patient there. Turns out she’d been discharged that morning so I killed to birds with one stone and decided to loose their loos. 2½ hours of queuing will do that to your bladder. I pulled down my jeans and heard “PLOP”. I thought to myself – what was that? - I don’t remember having a No. 2?! My cell phone had been in my jean’s back pocket and had slipped out and dropped into the loo bowl. I whipped around and dug it out, pulled up my jeans at lightning speed and flew off to the hand drier to dry my phone. I immediately took the battery out and held it under there for a while. The phone switched back on and then off again a few seconds later, then on again. I washed my hands and sprayed them with my anti bacterial spray (urgh! Digging in the toilet?!!?) I walked back to the car and my phone switch on and off again. I heard cracking coming from the speaker and though that’s it, its stuffed… I will leave it open to dry out for a few days and then try and switch it back on. In the meantime I’ve lost all my contacts.So not only did I have an eventful afternoon at Home Affairs, I drowned my cell phone too.What a great day!Moral of the Story: Remember when you have kids apply for their Unabridge Birth Certificate upfront and avoid fun and games at the Home Affairs.

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