Doing Something Well

We had an appointment this afternoon at one of the government offices in town in connection with renewing our green cards. The last time we needed to go down there was some five years ago. Since that time we've had the cards renewed but that hasn't required having new pictures taken or new thumb-prints recorded (which is how the cards cunningly let you get quickly through passport control at the airport here), so we haven't had to go down to get all the necessary done. Now you might be surprised to hear this, but we weren't really worried about the inconvenience of the trip and its attendant bureaucracy since we remembered our previous visit as being a breeze.

And, astonishingly, this one was even breezier. Seriously. The appointment was for 3.30 pm, but we arrived some twenty minutes earlier. Believe it or not, all the paperwork, the photo-taking and the thumb-printing was done by 3.25, and we left five minutes before our appointment time. The already super-efficient processes had been speeded up by having everything done by one highly efficient and friendly lady. We could even check if the photos were okay and were asked if we wanted them done again.

It's easy to make fun of the obsession here with getting work done well and providing excellent service, but when you're on the receiving end of the excellent services you can't help but admire the results. And it all added to the sum of human happiness as we were able to go off in very good time for the cup that cheers at Arab Street and have a fine old time doing precisely nothing.