Eddies…

“I have detected,” he said, “disturbances in the wash.”
“The wash?” said Arthur.
“The space-time wash,” said Ford.
Arthur nodded, and then cleared his throat.
“Are we talking about,” he asked cautiously, “some sort of Vogon laundromat, or what are we talking about?”
“Eddies,” said Ford, “in the space-time continuum.”
“Ah,” nodded Arthur, “is he? Is he?” He pushed his hands into the pocket of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
“What?” said Ford.
“Er, who,” said Arthur, “is Eddy, then, exactly?”
Ford looked angrily at him.
“Will you listen?” he snapped.
“I have been listening,” said Arthur, “but I’m not sure it’s helped.”

Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I received the other day an email from ‘Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’ (funny! – I don’t recall that title previously including the ‘refugees’ bit!) concerning my application to renew my Permanent Resident card. This missive included the paragraph:

“This confirms that your application for your Permanent Resident card has been received by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on 2020/07/08.”

Making allowance for the fact that here in Canada dates can appear in a variety of odd formats – though not in the correct one (to an Englishman at least) – I calculate that this means that my application was received by the IRCC on July 8th this year – the which would be about right.

I am – perhaps understandably – a little mystified as to why they should send me an email to advise me of this fact on October 14th.

The email also advises me that I can check the progress of my application by visiting the appropriate part of the IRCC website and entering my Unique Client Identifier (UCI). Perhaps – I muse – they have just started processing my application – which might account for their sudden correspondence.

I follow the guidelines.The IRCC website claims never to have heard of me!

I wade through the notes trying to establish why I might appear to be missing from the system. The site helpfully informs me that this is probably because my application has not yet made it to the processing stage – and until is has I officially don’t exist.

Sooooo… Three months after I submit my application IRCC randomly sends me an acknowledgement, even though they have not – and apparently have no intention of – actually looking at it anytime soon.

No – I don’t get it either. What is it about bureaucracies?