The Drama Department at my school have a new fridge. To people who live and work in the real, big, scary world, the one outside of education, that does not involve vast amounts of bureaucracy and paperwork this may not seem to be big news, but here it is "Hold the front page" stuff.
When Lawrences returned to KL after our summer holidays I entered the office and was greeted with that noxious smell that can only be made by an aged fridge that has stopped working for good. That was on 27th August. Two months and two days later a new fridge was delivered. But it so nearly didn't happen. I have written at length ad nauseum about the various stages that I have had to go through to get said cool machine but on Monday this week it really felt as if no progress had been made in those two months. I spoke to my colleague in purchasing who gloomily informed me that there had been yet another delay in the whole sorry tale. The supplier, apparently a company expert in supplying fridges, had originally promised a Toshiba fridge, but now, after ages, had said that they could not provide such a fridge, instead they could only supply a Sharp. Naturally I didn't care what sort, colour, name, political persuasion or gender the fridge was just so long as it did what it needed to do without smelling. A green and orange striped fridge name Doreen would have been fine. However the brand change, despite the fact that it was the same price, was a problem for the Central Purchasing Department, a distant office that sometimes appears to exist simply to make the buying of stuff more complicated than it needs to be. Approval had to be sough by my school's purchasing people from the precious souls at CPD before we could progress further. I resigned myself to another few weeks of delays and stalling. I was shocked when, on Wednesday, I got a call from my purchasing colleague to say that the fridge had been delivered into one of the Drama studios. Installing it was quite something, after all the delays. The two hours that it had to sit still for before switch-on seems to fly by given the length of time, numbers of staff, phones calls, emails, signatures (including several from the head teacher), that had had to happen. Interestingly two hours is probably the length of time that it would have taken had I borrowed the school minibus, driven to a fridge shop, bought a fridge, loaded it into the minibus, driven back and carried it in the office, something that my purchasing colleague had told me, in no uncertain terms could not be allowed to happen. It was clearly far better to waste countless people's time in order to save, possibly, a few ringgit on the purchase price.
There have also been two personal bureaucratic challenges that I have had to tackle this week as well. Firstly the end of the Lawrence Clan car loan. At the end of September we paid the last RM919 of the loan to buy our charabanc. Great news. The bank who had agree to loan us the money, Public Bank, kept the ownership documents as a sort of security, and agreed to return them to us once we had discharged our obligations to them. It had taken quite a while to work out the process of how to pay the loan as at no point had Public Bank explained the repayments process to me, instead preferring to send a letter two years ago saying we were late with our payments. I did eventually manage to sort that out and then paid the money diligently each month. I visited Public Bank at Solaris this week and entered a curious mixture of the old and new. I had to take a numbered ticket to see the next available official (old) and was given a number depending on which department I had asked to see (new). I looked around the bank and saw 13 staff, piles of paper and several large ledgers bearing titles such 'Cheque Registration Log.' It felt like a half had taken a giant leap back to the days of Mr Banks's bank in Mary Poppins while the other half was battling towards the future. To add to the strange goings on each customer in the bank dutifully ignored the big sign on the door stating that mobile phones should not be used while in the bank. My number didn't come up (old) so I then simply approached a customer services bloke and he dealt with me (new and unexpected really.). He also didn't ask for my passport (new), or my name (curious), instead just wanting only the car number (my mind went blank.). Luckily the number is on the key fob. After some investigations, a month after the final loan payment it turns out that there were late payment charges that needed paying, RM11.40, or about £2.00. I coughed up and asked for the documents. It wasn't that simple. The documents were at another KL branch and would have to be delivered to Solaris. It would take two weeks and the branch will phone me when they arrive in. I have made a note to visit the branch again in one month as I am certain that the bank will not call.
The other bureaucratic challenge I face this week is getting my work permit transferred into my new passport. The HR department have assured me that this process will only take two weeks (I have visions of my passport strapped to the back of tortoise one and the car ownership documents strapped to tortoise number two and seven officials all on their mobile phones seeking permission from their bosses to start the race). One of the many complications to be faced here is that my new passport has a different number to the old one, as it is the document that carries the number, not the person. That is fine by me, but given that so many people in Malaysia have my passport number and require it carry out the most basic of tasks for service provision I could be in for an interesting time in the future.
Some pleasantly surprising news this week came through another piece of unusual bureaucracy. The colleague who organizes training administration came to see me on Monday asking what time I would like my flights booking. No-one has ever asked me that before, so I was a little confused. What flights? A while ago I had applied to go on a on leadership course, thinking that I could contribute a few things to the event as well as pick up some new ideas too. I had deliberately not got my hopes up, thinking that if it got approved then great, but if not then so be it. During a recent conversation with the deputy head I came away thinking that it would be highly unlikely that I would allowed to go and thought no more of it. Until, of course, the flights question. I was over the moon! It is not every day that I get the opportunity to go to South Korea.