“It takes a while to get the flow
The official at the table may say no!
Wow! Look my file is the creme de la creme!
Wake up my dear! Tis just a dream!”
This can be red or white and your influence is shown only when you can escape or at least fast track it!
Intrigued?
Read on!
I hate documents! The average human being is surrounded by papers which prove that he is a human! A piece of paper is more important that anything else!
No wonder there are so many forgeries!
Then again with more papers come more checks and more bureaucracy!
Now in India most of the works to apply and register and get a document is more or less streamlined and the wait is much less.
Then again an average government office all over the world have this issue! The authentication and time delay and the time waste!
This is the RED TAPE!
The term “red tape” is “an umbrella term covering almost all imagined ills of bureaucracy,” both public and private!
More commonly though, red tape is usually defined more narrowly as government policies, guidelines, and forms that are excessive, duplicative and/or unnecessary, and that generate a financial or time-based compliance cost!
For the average person who already is weighed down by the job and work timing; the wastage of time is the major factor!
There is also a White tape; which recognizes that regulations that are intended for useful purposes may nonetheless entail a compliance cost.
It is generally believed that the term “red tape” originated in the early 16th century with the Spanish administration of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, who started to use red tape in an effort to modernize the administration that was running his vast empire.
The red tape was used to bind the most important administrative dossiers that required immediate discussion by the Council of State, and separate them from files that were treated in an ordinary administrative way, which were bound with ordinary string.
As of the early 21st century, Spanish bureaucracy continued to be notorious for extreme levels of red tape (in the figurative sense)!
In 2013, the World Bank ranked Spain 136 out of 185 countries for ease of starting a business, which took on average 10 procedures and 28 days!
Similar issues persist throughout Latin America.
In Mexico in 2009, it took six months and a dozen visits to government agencies to obtain a permit to paint a house!
In fact there is an award which is like the IGNOBLE called the Paperweight award which ‘rewards’ and lists cases of Red Tapism!
Town of Smithers in Canada is on this list for the third straight year with what the federation likes to call its “sidewalk to nowhere” bylaw.
In the popular movie ZOOTOPIA, one of the most hilarious and dark comedy scene is the one with the Motor Vehicle department! The reason it was funny is that it was so relatable!
The person at the counter does everything so slow including talk much to the irritation of the officer! I guess such departments are similar all over!
The lethargy to come whenever you want and do work till the next break and still get paid without any accountability is the reason why people prefer government jobs! Of course even they have issues but then the whole system gets you after some time!
I still remember the mountain of files and permissions I had to get as a class rep for the college trip which was partially sponsored by the government! It was roaming from one desk to another from one office to another in a different city and that too in between the college! We had to stay in an old lodge since we ran out of money! On top of that unluckily that was the day of the state government strike! Then again I am thinking now that the only reason why it got approved was because there was a strike going on and the Babus were eager to finish and scoot!
The chief issue here is counter check! Even the office workers do not have much leverage since there are people with fake papers and unless it goes through the bureaucratic machinery, the paper does cannot be passed!
Which reminds me of the famous scene in that serial which was an amazing parody to the office workers! OFFICE OFFICE! In one of the episodes, Pankaj stands in front of the official and states that he is alive! But the official tells him that, “That cannot be possible! The document here says that you are dead!”
If you want to take revenge on your enemy, just send him or her to get a official paper! He or she would get his karma!
The best and in fact an ode to red tape is the book called the Peter Principle by Peter Sutton! That is an amazing novel which tells us about how
everyone in an organization reaches to his or her own level of incompetence and peaks! This is so true when it comes to most offices especially with a hierarchical structure! The files pile up and the efficacy goes down with each push to the top! And the tape gets more red everyday!
Now while red tape is an ode to that search for accuracy which is actually never attained while poetry and fiction is an ode to abstract which has no limits! Which reminds me of the great poet and writer Kuppalli Venkatappa Puttappa or KUVEMPU!
The last Monday of the year marked by Red Tape experience! I fervently hope that it does not continue!
Shubh Ratri!
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