I am all too familiar with the infamous bureaucracy of the French public services. I cannot even say I learned how to deal with it because the truth is I never did. Having to update my visa, bring documents to the immigration offices or any other task related to the public service office made me worry for days and kept me up at night thinking of the worst case scenarios.
An incident that really angered me while in France was my appointment to get my residency permit. To begin, I was already in a bad mood from the day before. I was having a hard time to getting the bank in Canada to transfer money to France. Having to sit for 2 hours after the arranged time didn’t make matters any better. Finally when I was called to the gate, the lady processing my request looked at all my documents, looked at me and said my birth certificate was not valid and I would have to get the original. I attempted to explain that I had no original and that was the one I received from the Government of Canada. She just stared at me and shook her head. Finally, like the icing on the cake, I asked to speak to her supervisor which turned out to be the biggest mistake I made. She turned a light shade of red and said that was all she could do for me.
In retrospect, I should have been more thoughtful of her situation. She was just doing her job and I was letting other factors influence my attitude towards her. However, by the end of my year abroad, I did learn to bring a book to these appointments because I knew I would be there half the day.
