One of my idiosyncracies is that I insist on defending bureaucracy and those in them.  Not for being perfect, but for being well-intentioned, and generally surpisingly effective in difficult circumstances.   And I believe that often they are helpful, both in implementing the decisions of those democratically elected to make those decisions, and in serving the public, who elect their bosses and pay their salaries.

But, of course, there are notable exceptions.  And this one is a doozy.  When these happen, I'm inclined the join the screaming masses, and rant and rave about the incompetence of the bureaucrats, their remarkable insensitivity, and their general ineptness.

A Kosovar family that a group of us are sponsoring have been here for two months now. It's been six months since Mom and the five kids have seen dad, who got separated from them in the first days of their exile from Kosovo and ended up in a refugee camp in Turkey, instead of in Macedonia with the rest of them.  Finally, at long last, Dad was to arrive. 

First, he was to arrive on Wednesday night. (That would be last night.)  We had arranged for two cars to pick up the family members and take them to the airport, and for most of the sponsorship group to be there to greet him and welcome him.  Then, early this week, Immigration Canada advised us that while Dad would arrive in Montreal on Wednesday evening from Turkey, Immigration officials would need to debrief him, and that couldn't be done quickly enough for him to get on the last flight here.  He wouldn't arrive until Thursday morning. 

Knowing how disappointed his anxious wife and children would be, we urged the officials to see if there was a way to expedite the debriefing, or for us to commit to bringing him to immigration officials here today for the debrief, after he'd had one night with his family.  They said they'd check.  Then they told us that they had tried, but it simply wouldn't be possible.

We took a deep breath. We disappointed the family.  We found two cars who could pick up the family and take them to the airport at mid-day today to meet him.  And more of us would be there to welcome him as well.  We were set.   Or so we thought.

It turns out that some immigration official with the very best of intentions in Montreal did expedite the debriefing, and odered a junior officer to accompany Dad on his flight here, to complete the debriefing in mid-air.  Dad arrived at 11:00 p.m. last night.  No-one was there to meet him. No-one had let family members or sponsors know. 

Dad called the family.  The family called the nearest sponsor family, and that couple went to pick him up and take him home to his family.   He was apparently charming and polite.  But surely he was disappointed to finally get "home", only to find no-one waiting for him.  And the family, who had been looking forward to that welcoming scene for months, were robbed of their chance to be familiar faces to greet him in his new city.

So, some bureaucrat, operating out of good intentions, totally blew it. Do we complain? How do we complain? Will it serve any purpose?  What do we want them to do to "correct" this problem in future?  So, instead of taking on the bureaucrats, we're cursing their incompetence today.  Just for now.  Just this once.  Isn't it infuriating??

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