Copyright 2007, The New York Times CompanyYesterday I woke up at five to go wait in line for several hours at the Labor Department with another teacher to get more paperwork. When we arrived, the line was already around the block, but we were only about thirty people back, since the school had paid someone to wait for us.
We waited outside until the office opened at eight. Then we waited inside until they called our numbers.
Overall, it wasn't too terrible a trip. There was only one spelling error, which required an extra hour or so of waiting. And we came away with the little slips we needed so we could come back in next week and wait in line again to pick up the documents.
At least we didn't arrive at six in the morning, like the people who went today did, to find the Labor Department on strike.
That's the funny thing about this country. Anything seems as likely as anything else to happen. You may show up and everything goes smoothly. You may show up and they say your ID card is too frayed, go home. You may show up and the Labor Department's on strike.
Or, as happened earlier this week in Brazil, you may go to a funeral and find the deceased walk up, quite alive, to attend the festivities.
Ah, Brazil. Place where anything can happen.
As the saying goes: it's the country of the future--and always will be.
3 comments:
ha ha. this is a great description of the way things work. i've always wanted to write something about the social and political function of waiting-in-lines in argentina. a study of the economics of paid line-waiting would also be fascinating, no doubt...
I look forward to your study, MM.
The funny thing is, when we got there, I asked the school's liaison why we didn't just get there closer to 8, since they were paying someone to wait anyway. He said he tried that last year, and everyone in the line yelled at them, you think because you're gringoes you can do whatever you want?! (even though he's not a gringo).
But there are obviously unspoken rules to this paid line-waiting thing.
I was unfair from you showing a line of American people waiting to get jobs, probably at the 1929-32 depression, without pointing it out. It says NYT bit does not say it is not Brazil.
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