The bureaucracy

The documentation required for everything is daunting. We joined a gym, and it took me 3 days to provide them with all that they wanted to satisfy entry requirements. Passports, visas, pictures…and letter from IBM documenting that I am here on a one year assignment. I brought a letter from IBM HQ in Armonk; they wanted instead a letter from IBM management in India. The secretary gathering these documents said at the end…”you are not accustomed to all of the Indian bureaucracy. It is not like America, where you can sit at your desk, press a couple of buttons, and bombs drop in Afghanistan…” (!) (Was this, in his mind, the most compelling example of American efficiency and lack of bureaucracy?)