The Israeli Bureaucracy: Not so bad after all?

I know that the minute I post this, I'll get some phone call invalidating the title of this post, but what the hell, I'm feeling lucky after my experience today.

For those not carefully following along, last week a kind soul named Yuchi granted me an appointment at Misrad Hapnim to get a work visa, without which I've been unable to work. My appointment was set for 12:45 this afternoon; forty-five minutes after the office closed. Now, in any other country, this might have sent up a red flag, but in Israel, for whatever reason, I didn’t even think to question the logic. Just to be on the safe side, though, I arrived a full hour early. When I entered Misrad Hapnim, I mused to myself "this is exactly what it's like in hell," somehow appreciating this fact in a way that I hadn't in my previous visit. I walked into the door, and made it about a step and a half before I was nearly decked by a tall black-hatted man rushing in one direction while almost having my legs taken out by a three-year-old looking boy going in the opposite direction. I waited on a "line," which was more a clump than anything else, with people consistently pushing to the front and harassing the lone woman at the front desk. I decided that this woman probably has the worst job in Israel, which might explain why she only has to work four hours a day. By the time I'd “gently elbowed” my way to the front of the clump, the poor woman was as much as the end of her rope as she was at the end of her shift. She was very nice to me though, telling me that I shouldn’t have waited on this “line” at all, and that I needed to take a seat in the next room. As I walked through the clump to get to the corridor to the next room, it smelled like poopie pants.

Finally able to move and breathe freely, I made my way to the visa waiting room, which was packed with mostly Anglo English speakers from workers from the Philippines. I found a place to sit and opened up my book, expecting to be called at some point in the approaching two to four hours. You can imagine my surprise when I heard my name called at 12:46, a mere minute after my appointed time. I sat down with Dalia, who was exceptionally friendly and helpful, but never smiled at any point during our twenty minutes of interaction. Apparently, I had all of my documents in order, and surprisingly, the requirement to bring two pack mules as tribute to the Israeli Bureaucracy is no longer binding for people seeking work visas. So if anyone needs a couple of pack mules, just let me know (By the way, I'm pretty proud of myself for resisting the overwhelming urge to make an ass joke there. You know you were just waiting for it, and there's a part of you that still wishes it had been there, but there's a larger part of you that appreciates my shunning of predictability there). Dalia asked me to fill out a green form, typed some stuff into a computer, had to get her supervisor to sign off on my visa (I was surprised that she only needed one additional person to approve my visa), and before I knew it, I was walking out of the office with an official Israeli work visa. I'm still kind of in shock.

There is still the matter of seeing whether the cafe that wanted to employ me a couple of weeks ago has given away my job, but for the moment I'm just content to bask in the glow of my work visa. I don't even think I would care if they found someone else. Plus, with legal permission to work, my options are wide open now. So thank you Israeli Bureaucracy, for (can't believe I'm thinking this, let along committing it to print) making my life easier and better, in a not terribly bureaucratic or obnoxious way. Okay, now I'll be struck by lightning or spontaneously combust or something like that, so if you don't see any more posts, you’ll know what happened.

In other news, I've decided that I haven't given up on the Eagles' season yet (officially confirming either incredible stupidity or brutal masochistic tendencies), and I'll be waking up at 4am on Tuesday morning to watch them come incredibly close to upsetting the Seahawks, only to fall "Kevin Dyson in Super Bowl XXXIV" short. So there that is.

In other other news, lots of people are coming here soon. We're excited.

And finally, I've written this entire posting on my porch. It's December 4th, and it had to be like 80 degrees out today. This is great news for people who live here, and all but guarantees that the weather will be atrocious for every minute that we have visitors. Sorry in advance.