Why complain ?!?!?

Following my last post I really thought things could not get any weirder, stranger or even difficult for me and my stress prone mind and body. As I got my passport on the day before I flew back to Dubai, I asked again to the Passport Office if there was no way for me to have a certified later stating why they kept my passport ? When I got another official NO, I said to myself !@#$%?&!@#$%? and some more %$#@!?&*@#$%!&* ... so off I was back home, thinking, what kind of vacation was this ? takes more than a day ,to and from Montreal, and spent most of my time worrying about a passport and visa !!! The good thing coming back was that the flight had enough seat available for me to enjoy 3 empty seats to myself, that meant I would, and I did, sleep a whole 8 hours on the plane. As we landed in to Dubai, could not help myself to text my favorite B. to make sure I'll have an unconditional ear to listen to my rants. Once I got settled in the apartment , my compulsory need to go to the internet acted and just before I logged on to Facebook, decided to go check my schedule ! To my biggest surprise , my flights were replaced by leave days (vacation days), which down the line means less money for me and less vacation days to take in the future... How upset was I ? LIVID !!!! Let me explain, when I got to the airport the immigration officer did not make any fuss about me not having the visa on my new passport, as EK crew we have been issued electronic cards that let you by pass an officer , as all our information and finger prints have been registered. The officer directed me to the Egate (name of the card) counter where I scanned my card and finger , and voila, I was cleared. The officer also told me to just make sure I have the copy of my visa with my new passport until I can go to the office and have it transfered ! I mean really, how can such an important issue be interpreted a gazillion times by a service department ? As it was Thursday evening , meaning all offices were closed until sunday, that meant I could not do jack *&?% for 2 days , which have been marked as LEAVE.... How to balance all the bad words that were flowing to my brain cells and making their way to my mouth ? Surely enough I ended up at the beach on friday, and at Dreamland Aquapark on saturday. On sunday my adventure in Bureaucracy began at 8am, direction EGHQ (Emirates Headquarters) , went up to the visa section, explained my whole situation, which seemed odd and strange to them, got sent to the immigration services, where they seemed even more lost in my story, so nothing better for them to do then to expedite me again to the visa services where this time the agent lost his cool and went back to the immigration services (having talked to them before sending me lol) and there about 5 or 6 men were debating in Arabic about my situation tossing my passport from one hand to the other before deliberating on what to do ! Finally I was told to get a letter certified by the Canadian Consulate and then attested by the ministry of foreign affairs...my head was going beep beep beep , back up back up, when I joined EK I was poked and tested and so on to make sure I was healthy and benefit from a UAE resident visa , then issued ID cards which would let me go through security zones and immigration, so why exactly to I need to go through all that ? Why would my passport be a fake ? anyway.... moving on !

I arrived at the Canadian Consulate under a blazing  35 degrees celsius in Dubai... it was busy there in a small room full of people there to renew their passports etc... It was a bit funny hearing some issues people came with , made my problems seem obsolete.  Finally my number came up to go see a representative, of course as I started explaining my problem, they could not understand why exactly they needed me to produce a letter !!! My mind was going : Why don't you just do it %?#%@&@&#?@&#?# !!!!! LOL so the lady there tells me that it's gonna take a week minimum for them to verify everything : my passport, my story !!! At that precise second, I had a reverse orgasm and my brain exploded.

After a good hour that I took to calm down and realize that I'm still alive and healthy and that I still have a good life, I decided to go back to EGHQ and report to my manager. Unfortunately I soon realized that I was in this alone ! My intuition drove me to go back to the consulate, it's like I had a feeling of in-satisfaction  and I just could not leave it alone. As I got there, another lady was present and told me that waiting a week or more is just crazy, and all I had to do is type a letter stating what happen and they would attest to it ! Things were looking better ! Off I was home after a long day of frustrations and what nots. Next day, up and early and I was at the consulate, this time it was empty as if the gods decided to give me a break lol got my letter attested and certified, went to the foreign affairs ministry and did the same, got to EGHQ and submitted my documents, and now I have to wait another 4 days to find out if my visa will be awarded to me. At this point, if I don't get it, there is something seriously wrong with this picture and I don't want to be part of it !

On the down side of this whole experience, spent over 700 DHS so far (about 230$ canadian) , lost some brain cells, that burned, my view of bureaucracy being a BS factory was strengthen , I lost my pairing to Milan and working hours, lost 4 days of vacation leave plus a week on vacation being stressed. But hey, there is a plus side, I got to work on my tan lol enjoyed some fun times with the B. who had his birthday and I have a very good roster for the month of May to look up to, going to Beijing, Glasgow, Birmingham, Lagos and London and just 3 short turnarounds. The lord works in mysterious ways !!! That he does :)

Oh to clarify, B means Britney lol you foooooooolllsss :)

Later...