Jumping through Hoops

Well, I did it. Took a long bike ride to the Noe Valley Post Office to get my FBI fingerprints and was told the paper with the number I had needed the bar code also. So another day walked four miles there with bar code in hand to discover their machine was broken. Then two days later, drove across the bridge to another Post Office and all seemed fine except the machine kept refusing to register my pinky finger’s print. We persevered and finally it came through! 

 

Next I had to find six different forms online and either figure out how to do digital signatures or print, sign, scan and send. After a short struggle finding the forms, I finally contacted the institution and insisted they send them as PDF’s. They did and I went through the sign/scan/send circus the required number of times finally to send it off. Counting the walking, biking, driving, signing, scanning, etc.,  some 12 hours of unpaid time. For what?

 

If you guessed that I was being vetted for a top-secret high-security government project that dealt with espionage or nuclear weapons or cyber-hacking, that would make perfect sense. But all of this was to give two weeks of classes to kids in a school. What’s wrong with this picture? 

 

My Inspiring Quotes daily e-mail included this one.

That is perfectly true. But what happens when a society organizes itself in such a way that in order to do the things that strengthen you— like making joyful music with children—you are  required to make a forced march through an endless array of hoops with thorns on the inside that leave you feeling stressed and overwhelmed? 

 

Just wondering why.