23/6/95

Going Bureaucrazy

Cranky Israel is becoming a kinder, gentler place.

    "Good morning, sir."
    I looked around the waiting room, figuring there must be a prime minister in the vicinity, or a famous actor.
    "Yes, you, sir. How may I be of service?"
    Huh. I can't be tricked so easily: this must be a skit for Candid Camera. Well, they weren't gonna make a fool of me. Act natural, I said to myself; just get in line and wait, wait all morning if necessary.
    But there was no line.
    Well, then; the office must be closed.
    She smiled, beckoned. It made me very uncomfortable. I took a few tentative steps to her counter. "There must be some mistake," I explained anxiously. "I just arrived, like, I haven't even had a chance to take a number yet."
    "You are Number One with us, sir; an esteemed member of the public, an honored dues-paying citizen."
    So that's it. I had somehow entered a space warp and ended up at a country club on the Riviera. "Sorry," I said, blushing, and turned to leave. "I thought this was Kupat Holim."
    She asked, very politely, if perhaps I had come in for a brain scan. That would explain....
    It would explain nothing. Since arriving in this country I have spent an estimated 15 percent of my waking hours (and perhaps 3 percent of my naptime) at various dread bureaucracies, waiting, jostling, elbowing, bickering, waiting, interminably waiting, pushed about like a head of cattle from one queue to the next, from clerk to scowling, shirty clerk, thrown in among the braying herds of scowling, shirty creatures yearning to be free, dreaming that yea, their turn might come some day.
    And not five seconds after I'd stepped out of the elevator and into this waiting room, this woman wanted to be of service?!
    I wondered where my fellow head of cattle were. It made me very nervous to be first in line with no one behind me. "Oh, but this is Israel, sir," she explained. "We really try to save our fellow man from inconvenience. Nowadays, with faxes, computers, tip-top phone service, dependable mail deliveries, we can, with just a little effort, save you so very much bother, sir. And if you'd rather not be interrupted at home or office, we'll even confer directly with your doctor of choice. In fact, it's gotten so we're thrilled to meet a member of the public in person, to help someone face-to-face. And just in case anybody does, God forbid, absolutely have to journey all the way to our premises, we've fixed the place up so that you almost don't want to go home."
     I conceded that, given half a chance to hang around a bit, I could spend a very nice few hours looking at all the Van Goghs covering the walls.
    It all seemed so unnatural; anti-social even. And this hap-hap-happy woman was getting up my nose.
    I was dazed. "It's almost like --"
    "-- Like a revolution?"
    "Yeah, it's like --"
    "-- Like the bureaucracies are privatizing, the civil servants are actually serving civilly, the taxpayers are getting their money's worth and cranky Israel is becoming a kinder, gentler place?"
    "Yeah, it's like --"
    "-- Like we're so tuned in to the public that we can actually anticipate their needs, frustrations, their very thoughts?"
    "Yeah."
    She was bursting with pride. "I'm so glad you noticed."
    "But -- but when did it all happen? Only recently I was in the Labor Ministry and a clerk named Margalit Eilat screamed at me to 'get out of here and come back when you learn to speak Hebrew properly.' I mean, to get from that to this, it should take --"
    "Eons?"
    "More or less."
    "Truth is, sir, we're striving to improve even further."
    "Not possible."
    "The first step, according to LP, is believing that we should improve. That's the biggest improvement of all."
    "LP?"
    She smiled warmly. "Our guru. Dr. Lipshitz-Pinkas."
    "Proctologist?"
    "No, he's our man in public relations. Used to work in the Trauma Unit. He developed theories on institutional onus, proving that monolithic officialdom  embitters the individual who in turn abuses the employees who respond by frustrating the citizen, a vicious cycle that creates impulsive enmity and rebellion against authority and, ultimately, uglifies the national persona. The cycle, he maintains, can be broken by just one single smile which, theoretically, can become contagious and affect a reverse cycle."
    "In other words, the customer's always right."
    "Pretty revolutionary, no?"
    "What'll they think of next."
    My friendly neighborhood bureaucrat lit up. "Dr. Lipshitz-Pinkas is now working on a whole new theory you won't believe. You know what's the greatest obstacle to the clerk-client relationship in Israel? It's so obvious that it's positively breathtaking: furniture. The desk or counter or window they put between us. It's a contentious obstacle suppressing natural communication. How, says Lipshitz-Pinkas, can one expect your average Israeli to properly express himself while inhibiting basic body language? The Israeli needs to speak with his hands, he needs a bit of room to pace, to parry, even to touch a little. So much of our communication is based on how we stand with or opposite a person. He calls it 'physio-verbal fencing,' and says it is necessary for an honest relationship."
    She was right; the distance created by her desk was the only thing keeping my hand from clamping her mouth shut.
    Testily, I pointed out the major flaw in this view of governmental utopia. "What this Dr. Pinklips Shitzas --"
    "--Lipshitz-Pinkas," she politely corrected me.
    "What he doesn't seem to understand is that this country is not ready for lovable bureaucracies. Not so quickly, anyway. You're an ideal conduit for hostility, and we need that."
    I thought she was going to hug me. "You are so right, sir, but we're happy to take our lumps while the public gets used to it."
    "Enough!" roared a woman behind me. I whirled around, and blanched.
    "Your wife?" asked the clerk.
    "No," I moaned. "My editor."
    "You call this funny?" the editor bawled. "I give you the day off to do a vicious rip of the typical Israeli bureaucracy, which really can't be so difficult, and all you can come up with is this drivel about how wonderful it is?"
    "But --"
    "I want bitching and moaning. I want poisonous satire on the caustic inhumanity of public administration. I want sarcastic callousness and cynical humiliation and you know why? Because that's reality, that's what the reader expects and because that is what humor is. Humor is shared misery; it is not an expose of efficient, courteous and conscientious indulgence. You understand? Nice just ain't funny!" 
    "But --"
    "Good. It seems we understand each other," she hissed. "I'll expect something a little different on my desk tomorrow, something nasty enough to provoke a furious letter of outrage from the director of this wretched place."
     "But -- but I can't," I blurted. "So help me, I tried. You think I want to be the first person in the history of humor-writing to say nice things about bureaucracy? Something's happened here, boss, something ... weird."
    Out of the blue, our haplessly happy clerk cut in. "Perhaps I can be of service," she said sunnily.
    My editor and I glared at her. "Aw, shut up!" we snarled in unison.
    "Perhaps," the Kupat Holim clerk continued, "I could refer you to a hospital."
    I looked at her quizzically. "Whatever for?"
    She didn't seem to be smiling anymore. "I can assure you, sir, they'll treat you precisely as required."