The Hydra of Bureaucracy
(Millennials and the struggle with Bureaucracy)
I moved to Spain almost 4 years ago. In a cold Milanese winter I decided to change and head to a warmer place for a couple of years. Just a couple of year, I said, and then back to Italy. Here I am after all, the plan was correct but I didn’t have all the info yet, but this for another story.
Moving looked easy, you go there, the language is almost the same as Italian, you are European, no issues at all. I was wrong, and sooo much.
The list of documents to work in another European country can vary, but the basic are almost the same: Fiscal number, social security and residence certificate. Just 3 pieces of paper, nothing more, but here start the journey.
I need a NIE, a DNI for non-Spanish residents. I look online for an appointment to the office, and I discover that the first available one is in 3 months, and I need one to enroll in university. I am desperate, and I talk with everyone, until a friend tell me that you can go to the office at 6 am to get a special appointment without the online reservation.
Cool! Let’s go! I start researching first on the needed documents, and on the Spanish government website I discover that I need an empadronamiento (Certificate of residence). I’ll get one before going, on the website for the empadronamiento, I discover that I need a NIE. I’m getting more and more confused, but decide to try the NIE without the empadromiento.
It’s 5 am of a Monday morning when I wake up, I arrive at the office at 6:20 am. 3 people already in the queue, with a coffee thermos and hope. We get our number, and wait. At 11 is my turn, the civil servant asks me for the empadronamiento, I make her notice that I need the NIE to get one. She said that it made sense, and I had to get one, at the third explanation she decided to proceed and give me the NIE. Only after I’ve paid a small fee. I said: “Sure, How do I pay”. In a bank — She replied — but only on Tuesday and Thursday. Come back tomorrow.

Why I do see Bureaucracy as an Hydra? If you have a base of Greek mythology or watched Hercules from 1997, you should know that the Hydra of Lerna is a monster that will grow 2 heads for each one you are cutting. This is what you feel you are going against. You solve a small part of the puzzle, just to be attacked by 2 issues generated by it.

For an almost digital native, it is the biggest non-sense. Everything is outdated and illogical.
The interesting part of this system is that it is partially digital, but based on paper work. The logic behind each action is the same as 1950, where a specific paper should be signed in a specific office, copies thrice, handed down to the office down below and finally blessed by the virgin Mary on a full moon eclipse night.
The struggle of my generation, so used to data, and accessibility with everything at the tip of your finger is palpable. It is funny how we are used to the oversimplification of the user experience and user interface to a way where we expect everything to work according to logic and common sense.
We are not conceiving the existence of such obscure and intricated mechanism our lives are based on.
After more years of adulthood I understood, that all those rules are there to be overruled. They more an indication of what we should do, more than the reality itself. A guidance for the worker of the specific office, not a strict directive, and I used it at my advantage, in my next story.
After this experience a normal person would have learn the lesson, and avoid all the contacts with this over convoluted. Well, I am a special one.
I decided to convert my driver license from Italian to Spanish. I started looking on the official website of DGT (Dirección general del Trafico). The process looked simple:
- Go there with some documents
- Deliver them
- Wait for the new License to be delivered at your place
I open the website, and surprise surprise, there are 2 different lists of documents to be presented, in a different number of copies. My body is ready, I know how to manage it. I am powerful. After a tedious booking process, I have an appointment, in 5 months, but at least I have one.
The day of the visit is there, I have an incredible number of documents, everything in triple copy. I arrive to the desk, to discover that none of the 2 lists online was correct, and I had only a lot of wrong stuff, because they did not updated their list online, and it is my fault not knowing it.
At that point, the teaching of a friend came to my mind. Spanish bureacrazy can be beaten only by non-sense and refusal. So I did. You sit down, and refuse to leave until someone does it for you, you read something online, and don’t care anymore.
Confusion arise, people are complaining.
Refusal is still on, and time pass, until someone from the office decides to start your paper work, and you can deliver the rest on the next appointment. On fast track, only in 3 months. I feel a VIP at this point. I’ve got my driver license in the end. 11 Months in total from appointment online to deliver at home.
“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”― Henry David Thoreau
Bonus part: 2 great examples of Bureaucracy and humor
I am not the first to explain this struggle. The first example I remember is in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix movie. One of the tasks is to get the permit A38 from an office, that is called by many as the place that sends you mad. Asterix asks for it and is send from one office to another, and one floor to another without any chance to get it. He is able to get it, while asking for an imaginary permission, with even more complex rules that he made up. This is making the entire office going crazy while looking to solve it. I remember laughing a lot about it, for the mess he created (I like chaos), but I was not expecting the story to be so close to reality. If you have time, here the video
I am thinking of a more recent representation in Brooklyn 99, where the zealous agent Amy Santiago has to get a Block-party request. She got in a buckle when she realizes that the permit requires another one, that cannot be obtained without the one she was requesting. She manages to get it, buy exploiting a century old rule, that was never cancelled, to request a women’s public humiliation permit instead of the original one.
