So I finally got the police report filed correctly for my stolen Mighty Steed, and went to the local ward office to file an application for termination of taxes on the scooter I no longer own.
I had the form filled out already, including the police report number. Handed in the form and was out in a couple of minutes. Simple! I was half-way out of the office when I heard the guy running after me shouting my name:
him: Mr. Kuroda! Mr. Kuroda!
me: yes?
him: You forgot to turn in your scooter registration.
me: Registration? I don't have it. It got stolen with the scooter.
him: Your scooter was stolen?!
me: Uh yeah. That's why I have a police report for a stolen scooter referred to on my application to stop charging me taxes for a scooter I no longer have...because it got stolen.
him: [deep thought, furrowed brow] Oh...right...could you come back here for one second?
So we went back to the desk. I discovered something at this point through Socratic Logic:
He was a desk head because the other people in the office called him "Kakaricho" (Leader of a subsection/division; middle-to-low-level management)
Deskheads spend all their time Heading their Desks instead of actually Doing Work, so he was totally incompetent
All Deskheads are incompetent
Not the most beautiful logic but you get the idea. First he had to cancel the previous Mystery Transaction. Then he had to verify my police report by calling the police station. (At this point I realized that anyone can call the police station, claim to be a bureaucrat in a government office, and get all kinds of supposedly private information about anyone by inquiring into matters of police activity). Next he had to input a new transaction to process my application, then correct the date from the default (today) to the day the stealing took place, according to the police report. Then he had to print the transaction confirmation.
All along he had problems and the lovely part-time housewife with the blue apron and the nice smile kept coming over and going "Remember you have to hit the enter key here..." or "The second page gets stamped, the first page initialled..." Our belov'd kakaricho couldn't get the paper into the printer. She dropped it in and got it to print on the first try. Our hero couldn't go back to the previous screen. He called the helpdesk (5209, if you're ever in the ward office on an internal phone) and stared at his keyboard, befuddled, going "F 1? OK I'll try..." and attempted to hit both the 'F' and '1' keys at the same time with his left hand, while his right hand held the phone to his sweaty ear. I could see the F1 key, I could just reach out and hit it myself, I could just run away and put all this behind me, I could just wrap the phone cord around his splotchy neck and pull until his eyes bugged out even more...
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