Black-on-black bureaucracy (& affirmative action strippers!)
The world of Blogs in SA is growing rapidly and today we check out an entertaining article from a fellow SA blogger – TRUDI – her blog is called ‘Trudi wants her groove back’ and if u enjoy this article make sure to let her know by visiting her blog TRUDI.
Bad service is one of our really painful achilles heels …
in our attempts to get it together in SA – Trudi takes us downtown to Home Affairs.
Black-on-black bureaucracy (& affirmative action strippers!)
I visited the Home Affairs Department on Monday. Part of ‘the horrors of real life’, as Gabriel Garcia Marquýz would say. I went to the one in Harrison Street, downtown Johannesburg. I work downtown and I love the vibes, colours, and rhythms of the city.
But it can get too much sometimes. I could have gone the super-organised, neurotic route but maybe I am sucker for this kind of pain. Instead of downloading the forms from the Internet, taking the right change, photocopying my ID in advance and locating an office in the northern suburbs, I just went to the office I’ve always gone to.
I have bad memories of this office. I frequented it at a few years ago to correct the spelling of my name in my ID document. It had been misspelled on my birth certificate (which had been reissued when I was in primary school). The mistake was carried on to the ID document I received when I was sixteen and it irritated me: GETRUDE instead of GERTRUDE. GET RUDE! The correction was considered a name change and I queued and queued! It was a long process… change the birth certificate, get it announced in the government gazette, wait for approval…all because some idiot dropped an R. I could have lived with it, but it reminded me too much of apartheid days when the authorities spelled our names any old how.
The office is in a very busy part of town, close to the taxi nerve centre, Bree Street. It is somewhat bleak and back then they didn’t even have benches for people to sit on. It was just a big, empty hall with counters. And filled with the most unhelpful officials ever; I do not exaggerate.
This time I was there for something more mundane. I drove there mid-morning. It was hectic as always. I worried about parking but was saved by a sign that promised public parking. The parking lot was huge, dark, filthy and full of taxis, but it was right next to the building. I parked in a corner lot and looking down on a disused lower level, I could see a grimy little well of water, with all sorts of debris floating in it. I was scared I would catch something just by looking at it.
The office itself looked cleaner than in the past. They even had a body at reception, though he was more interested in his conversation than anything else. Nothing suggested that he was even aware of the people thronging into the office. He couldn’t have been more relaxed if he was in his own living room.
I noticed that they hadn’t had time to remove Jacob Zuma’s picture from the wall yet. It was less than a week since his dismissal, but still I wonder…
For my mundane application, there was a very short queue. There were some signs that spelled out the requirements and the appropriate counters. When it was my turn to be assisted, the black female official greeted me rather absent-mindedly. Then she turned to a colleague who was standing next to me on the other side of the counter. Without acknowledging my presence any further, she proceeded to order lunch. She then asked her other colleagues if they wanted lunch. It all seemed very natural to her. Ignore the client, do your thing.
She processed my application (and though it was mundane, there was a slight complication in my affairs, I hope they won’t mess it up but this could be a topic of much b*tching in coming weeks). I had to pay the fee, and she was utterly and visibly irritated that I gave her R200 instead of R155. I was sent across the road to go find some change.
She was generally rude and indifferent. This, unfortunately, was not an unusual occurrence. I have received this kind of treatment countless times, especially from black women. At least with men, there’s always the flirt option.
My worst experiences have been with government officials, but this happens at the grocery store too. Why do we find it so difficult to offer good service to one another? I have seen these same officials force a smile for other clients. When I was a kid, I knew many black people who swore they would never work for a black employer. They could not imagine anything more degrading. It’s a crazy mentality and it makes me furious. Why should anyone else take us seriously then if we can’t even be civil to one another?
I will admit that culturally it is generally awkward for black South Africans to engage in cold formal relations with prescribed niceties. It would be awkward if another black South African (especially one who is older) pasted a servile smile on her face and called me ‘Ma’am’. But we could adapt these conventions of customer service to something MORE respectful and perhaps warmer, not this dreadful behaviour.
Affirmative Action Strippers…
A friend of mine had a bachellorette party a few months ago. Two male black strippers were there to provide the night’s entertainment. They did not look convincing. They took off everything in about five minutes and stood there in loose-fitting full briefs. They were skinny and we could pull much more provocative moves. Maybe they were not professionals, just chancers out for a buck. We joked that they were affirmative action strippers and we ended up dancing with them. It was very bad service. But it was also not our thing. We admitted to ourselves that we could not sexually objectify these brothas, this was just too new to us. It was alright, we let them off the hook. We danced with them, and a few of the girls taught them a thing or two about erotic moves.
But an official at the government office. Come on, people!
