The human side to the bureaucrat (London)

 

Most people’s experience when they have to deal with a bureaucrat is not always warm, just to use one description that comes to mind — there must be lots of others. 

 

    Having to have any contact with a bureaucrat usually conjures up the image of some onerous task that one would rather not undertake.  

    It doesn’t help when/if the bureaucrat is not always warm/kind/sympathetic, which is the case in my personal experience of encounters with quite a few bureaucrats in two of the three countries I’ve lived in.  

    In some countries/cultures, the bureaucrat is often officious, with a fairly puffed-up ego about his/her position (having the authority to make your life easier — or not…; I’m not even talking about soliciting a bribe, although that is behind the attitude of some of them in some countries/cultures).

    With this background in mind, it was with great trepidation that I went along after my first two years in London to one of the government offices to apply for a National Insurance number.  An appointment was made for an official to come to my flat and have a chat with me.  (Those were the days when they had the time to travel to you.)

    The interview day arrived.  I let the official in.  As we sat down, I started off by saying that I had a great fear of officialdom, that I didn’t like dealing with bureaucrats from my past experience.

    At the end of the interview, with the outcome to arrive in the post, I went with him to the main door of my basement flat, walking behind him.  

    He went straight for the door in front of him.  I said, “Oh, that’s the door to the cellar under the stairs.  The way out is here, on your left.”

    He turned round and said, “Given how you feel about officials and bureaucrats, you should’ve just let me walk in there, and locked the door behind me…”

(London, 1979)

Definition of bureaucrat given by the MBP dictionary:  

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an official in a government department, in particular one perceived as being concerned with procedural correctness at the expense of people's needs: 

the unemployed will be dealt with not by faceless bureaucrats but by individuals.

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