Some more blood pressure rising moments

Even though I have some reflective posts planned in my head, today I need to use the blog for urgent venting about the hoops that the bureaucracy of my university is making me jump through. In the last few weeks I have largely managed to maintain my cool composure, but on some days the head of general affairs department attitude makes me mad.

It is about my future job. The time has come to make the application to the university office of my future employer. The application should be in tomorrow, one month before the employment starts.

Bearing in mind that there are three-days long holidays in the second half of September I have requested a necessary document, the certificate of employment, from my current employer’s university office on 17 Sep. Of course they are not going to do it immediately, but after two weeks waiting the time had come for me to rush them. I had to have it on Tuesday this week.

All the communications with the office have to be done by our secretary, or if she is not in by BOB, because they refuse to deal with me directly. On Monday I asked the secretary to tell them I need the document I requested two weeks ago by this Tuesday.

The first reply from the head of general affairs department was to ask why I need it. First of all it is not his business, and secondly, he has a legal responsibility to provide such document when I request it. He cannot make it conditional on him knowing what my purpose for such document is, whether I need it for a bank, immigration, job application, or whatever.

But to make my life easy I told them my purpose, as I have nothing to hide. But it does annoy me when they want to exercise power over people lives that they do not and should not have. And most Japanese people let the bureaucracy exercise such power over their lives, as they are brought up to be scared and fearful of the bureaucrats’ powers.

After being informed about the purpose of the certificate, the guy in the office replied that he would see what he could do, maybe he will provide me with the certificate, maybe not. That was the first blood pressure rising moment of this week.

He did provide me the document, but with the end date of my contract being December. So it was basically useless, as I need to prove to my future employer that I am free to take on the new employment next month, and that my contract here finishes in October. Together with the document, the secretary brought me a resignation that I need to submit to the office, so that they let me go next month. So there was some promise someone is doing some thinking (BOB and our secretary), but it was all in the reverse order.

I submitted the resignation to the office on Wednesday (the guy was away on Tuesday) and I have asked the secretary to request another certificate of employment, this one showing the correct date that actually proves my availability to take up the new employment in November.

After her short communication with the office, I have learned that the head of general affairs demanded that I must give the first certificate back to him, and after I do that he will consider whether to give me a new certificate.

He will consider! I am so annoyed by the attitude of this guy, who does he think he is! The have bl..dy legal responsibility to provide me with a proof of my employment here, regardless of anything. If I need five certificates, it is his responsibility to provide me with five certificates. And this guy behaves as if he had a right to make me jump through his hoops and to refuse me issuing such certificates.

I do not have the first certificate, as I have already sent it away, and I need the new certificate soon. But he is making his demands that I do it his way. I should have the new certificate in another city today, and now I will have to wait who-know-how-many days to get the new certificate, because of this guy stupidity and ignorance of the law, that states he has to provide me with such documents. Even if I need two of them.

If he made a mistake on the previous form and issued a certificate that is basically worthless to me I could have destroyed it in anger. And does he have a right to refuse me to issue another certificate because I do not have the old one? No.

It really got me angry today. Maybe I have an allergy to this guy’s behaviour already through his previous behaviours: he basically refused to provide me a certificate of employment when I needed one in May, because I did not give him a reason that was specific enough, I said it was for a fellowship application, and they wanted to know what fellowship I am applying for, when and with whom and I did not tell them. So they did not give me a certificate.

I was not fighting for it then, even though I could and should have. I was just too tired of all those games, of all those silly problems, and throwing logs under my legs, so that I fall down and break my legs. Any fighting would have made everything even worse. There is no way to win with bureaucracy here, even if I obtained the certificate then they would make my life hard and in some other way. I am sure that they would have some legal loops to manipulate me.

I find it tempting to go and seek help from Labor Standards Inspection Office in obtaining this certificate, just to prove this guy that he cannot just do what he feels like, in order to make my life miserable. I do know my rights and I will not let them infringed upon by some people who are clueless, but who think that they are oh-so-important.

Of course it would be a waste of time, and basically BOB would pay for this in having one week less results from me in the lab, but I do not care. This is the private institution and if for them the ego of some bureaucrat is more important than their bottom line, so be it. Grrrr, how angry am I!

Venting post over. I hope there will be more positive news in the next ones!