Bernice 
January 9, 2015
It is a new year, 2015 – according to the Chinese Zodiac calendar it will bring success, a flow of creativity and the need for luxury!! Just the way I would like it!
With all this positive energy and anticipation for what this year will bring, imagine the shock, horror and disbelief when I happened to stare at my driver’s license in my wallet. This is the one card that features proudly in my wallet but that is used the least. I like it because it has a black and white photo of me from years back. I look at it and think ‘not bad at all’…I look at it again and see that this waste of a card was issued on 02012010…I look at it again and notice the expiry date 05012015………I look at my calendar, low and behold 05012015 would in fact be THIS day tomm. should I open my eyes and the world still exists. I am horrified….5 years have passed, how can this be? Where did it go, what did I do during the last 5 years……………….I am still trying to answer all of these questions. Fact is, 05012015 is tomm, it is my last day of leave and now I have to go to the local authorities to have my driver’s license renewed……………….please hold…busy processing, whilst attempting rewind, control alt delete, fast forward, alas…… still processing.
On my last day of leave I wake up positive that I will be going to the licensing department early enough and it will be a quick in-out affair. I get dressed and make my way to the Randburg License Department, I arrive just after 8 and I am welcomed by a very full parking lot and plenty photographers wanting to take my picture. Still positive, I go to the entrance of the department and ask a gentleman where I should go and where I can have my photo taken. He continues to direct me through a dodgy gate (that only he can open and close) and tells me to follow the sign. Takes me a couple of seconds but I manage to find the ‘studio’. I am greeted by a good looking young man busy doing some maintenance on his camera, a white backdrop made of plastic, a plastic chair and surrounded by other locals all trying to earn a living by selling food etc. I have a quick chat with the young photographer, a very nice guy who tells me it is his father’s business and they plan to make it look a bit more upmarket soon. He is friendly, customer focused and well groomed. Further into the conversation I learn that he actually hates his job and that he would do anything to be like ‘other kids’ as they get to study and educate themselves. He takes my photo twice, I pay him a measly R50 for 4 photos and the transaction is concluded. I did not want to say anything at the time but I hated my photos, the lighting was so bad and well simply put, I look old. I wish him well and mosey on. Vein me, decides to try one more photographer in the hope that my photo would improve. Another R50 later in a more luxurious setting and I walk off with another 4 photos…….which are an improvement but leaves me feeling depressed and sad, the reality sinks in.
I finally get to fall in-line at the back of what appeared to be a very short queue I scan my surroundings and see a sign with instructions to collect a renewal form from reception. I proceed to do this and continue to join the queue. After digging in my handbag for a writing devise and trying my best to process the fact that I have aged so much in 5 years (photos never lie), I complete the form and like all the other people in the row glue my face to my cellphone to see what the rest of the universe is up to. After standing for about an hour I find myself concerned that I have not really moved at all but I am grateful for the fact that I brought a 500ml bottle of water with me. An hour later I have moved forward and was lucky to finally take a seat at the entrance. Still glued to my phone. I look up every now and then to scan the room. Alongside me are people from all walks of life, black, white, brown, young, old, fat, thin, disabled. We all have our own story and are joined here today, law abiding citizens. A little later I am one of six people who are told to go through the gate and find myself at the back of yet another queue that goes all the way up to a staircase. The people at the top are making jokes at us the new comers in the queue…I sense that these people giggling at us have been standing on these stairs for a long time. At this point I am starting to lose my sense of humour and I am starting to feel my bladder nagging that it needs to go for a bathroom visit. I however ignore this nagging in fear that I will lose my spot in the queue…so I stand. I stand some more. Another hour passes and another. The length of the actual queue is so deceiving, once you reach the top of the stairs you get to sit down again for a bit then you are lead to another room which are filled with people queuing. Needless to say I have seriously lost my cool, my bladder is aching and I start questioning everything. This brings me to the real reasons for this blogpost. What on earth can possibly take so long? All that is required is an eye test, a thumbprint and payment.
By now I have received a number; my number was 150 which mean that I am in fact 150th in the overall queue for the day. With the 4th hour commencing I finally reached the room where all the eye tests are done. The main reason for the terrible wait. Some staff went on lunch and they had one person on duty in the department. The room looked terrible, the equipment dirty and old and very messy in general. The one person on duty looked half asleep was slouching on her chair and to top it all accepted a phone call on her cell with no regard to the people that have been waiting for hours. She proceeded to chat on her phone whilst a ‘client’ was sitting impatiently in front of her, for at least 10 minutes. After about 20 minutes the staff on lunch re-appeared. I watch them carefully; the one rather large lady was clearly enjoying her chewing gum with her mouth wide open. She started to conduct her next eye test. Halfway through the eye test the computer crashes and consequently has to be restarted. I could not help but laugh in disbelief. I eventually passed my eye test and went to the cashiers. Here I found only one cashier on duty, after capturing something on her computer she tells me to go find the ops manager as she needs to sign off my finger prints. Off I go to where I think this person is sitting, she stamps my fingerprints and I return to the cashier. Five hours, a near burst bladder and R300 later I am relieved to leave the room with my temporary driver’s license and my application completed. I can collect my drivers in Feb. As I walked back I saw the faces of at least another 100 beyond frustrated people staring at me with envy. I felt sorry for them but made my way hastily to the nearest loo only to find that there is no loo paper. I left the building with my achingly full bladder and saw at least another 30 people outside kicking up a fuss because they were turned away.
Although surprised that no-one in the queue started to shout or scream I sensed what everyone in the queue was thinking. We all love this country, its people, its freedom, we forgive, we forget. Fact is that we are all part of a dysfunctional society; we allow the treatment, the disrespect, the lack of functional procedures and systems, the lack of accountability and the desire to make SA a better place for all. What I have witnessed is something that happens on a daily basis in hundreds of government departments. But why? It is clear that people no longer care, they disengage and they have neither respect nor pride for themselves, their place of work, their colleagues, and their fellow SA citizens let alone themselves. Who do we blame? The values we are taught in our homes, the educational system, technology, the government, the economy, corruption, employers – for not empowering their staff to do their job in a comfortable, clean and neat work environment?
Are you happy to go nowhere slowly? I am not.
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