Tag Archives: Bureaucracy

The Joys of Bureaucracy

October 1, 2022 · by · in Humour, Society · Leave a comment

Changed dental plans. Not a big deal. New plan came into effect on specific date. Went to the dentist on two days after that. Submitted claim. Claim denied. Telephoned to enquire as to why. Simple explanation. Plan went into effect on X date. I had gone to dentist on X plus two days. Asked them […]

Silly Season

May 12, 2020 · by · in Society, Travel · Leave a comment

The tulips are in bloom in Ottawa – and the government wants people to view them online, not in person. Understandable I guess. Everyone knows you can catch COVID-19 from flowers. You can’t of course, at least as far as anyone knows. Officials with the National Capital Commission (NCC) are more concerned with large crowds […]

The Waiting Room

July 13, 2019 · by · in Society · Leave a comment

There is a feeling of hope in the room. Fear also. What is going to happen next? On a rainy Friday morning it seems like there are a couple of hundred people waiting in the corridors of the Landratsamt (that’s District Office in English), waiting for their number to appear on the screen, waiting to […]

On The Road Again (Cultural Differences XII)

March 23, 2018 · by · in Society, Travel · Leave a comment

Got my new driver’s licence this week. It was quite the process. I knew before moving to Germany that I would need a German driver’s licence, that foreigners were only permitted six months grace before they had to be local. What I didn’t realize was the difference in the procedure for obtaining a licence compared […]

Bumbling Bureaucracy

September 11, 2015 · by · in Society · 4 Comments

I got a letter from the government. They wanted me to get a new health card. I ignored it. Ontario has been “upgrading” the cards citizens use to access our healthcare system. When I first moved to the province the cards were paper. Sometime in the 1970s they switched to plastic cards, red and white […]

Cash Cow or Cash Cat?

April 25, 2015 · by · in Family, Politics · 1 Comment

My wife tore up the letter from the City of Ottawa, or I would have posted it here. It seems Marshall’s license is due for renewal. If you read this blog regularly you know that Marshall was our cat, who died last month. The city knows we have a cat because the Ottawa Humane Society […]