{"id":4816,"date":"2019-09-30T09:22:08","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T07:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4816"},"modified":"2020-03-16T08:13:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T07:13:43","slug":"the-loophole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4816","title":{"rendered":"The Loophole"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I arrive at the pub a few minutes after my friend. It\u2019s a Saturday night in mid-September and we\u2019re taking advantage of the last days of reasonable warmth to sit outside in the garden. The garden itself, however, is showing the sad signs of being prepared for autumn and winter. Several of the tables towards the back are rendered unusable under the burden of RESERVED signs, their benches bent forward to disallow sitting for those who haven\u2019t mastered Yoga. Two storage containers are sitting in the back right corner, and will no doubt store extra produce and perishables through the autumn and more perishable perishables through the winter. The place is a bit depressing, and I can\u2019t unremember drinkers in summery T shirts and dresses sitting on those benches having loud conversations just a month ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sit. The big bald waiter drops my beer as my ass hits the\nbench. I think him and he grumbles a complaint. With another waiter, I would\nappreciate this and see it as a comfortable familiarity. But with this guy I\nattribute it more to the fact that he wants to save himself a trip and has\ngambled on my order. If I told him I didn\u2019t want a beer, there would be a major\nproblem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend is drinking a glass of wine, a carafe sits next to\nhis glass. We chat about the fun things we always talk about: language,\nteaching, books, writing, nipple-size, life. A far-off goal for our evening is\nfor him to help navigate me through the treacherous waters of a Czech\nbureaucratic application. I have to register a freelance working license for\nsome writing and editing and I have to go to the building with the form\naccurately filled out to be sure to fulfill my goal of getting the license. Somewhat<\/em>\naccurately, that is, because they are notoriously tricky. And somewhat<\/em>\nsure to fulfill my goal, because bureaucratic offices are notoriously capable\nof finding problems. In this case it could be a problem with the application\u2019s\ninformation, the adjoining documents, my visa, the clerk\u2019s current mood, or the\nway my hair looks. When I was registering my new address a few months ago,\nthere was a problem three times I went. It took my five times to get my new\naddress registered. I once heard that five times is the average. It\u2019s pretty accurate.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The problem is, there\u2019s always a loophole. The loophole is\nwhatever allows the worker to not do the thing you want to do. A week ago I\nwent for a haircut, always a dodgy endeavor. The woman came out and said \u201cDo\nyou have an appointment?\u201d When I told her no she said \u201cmy colleague does walk-ins,\nyou\u2019ll have to wait a half hour.\u201d I asked her: \u201cWell, do you have time?\u201d Her\nreply: \u201cI only do appointments?\u201d My reply: \u201cBut nobody is here.\u201d Hers: \u201cYeah,\nbut you don\u2019t have an appointment.\u201d I asked: \u201cCan I make an appointment?\u201d She\nshook her head and then she sat in her little office scrolling on her phone. I\nwaited for ten minutes, roughly the amount of time a haircut for a man takes,\nand I was the only person there the whole time. I had been loopholed.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The waiter comes back and my friend orders another carafe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, you don\u2019t have time. We\u2019re going to close early.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only 7:30,\u201d my friend says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incredulously: \u201cBut it\u2019s Saturday.\u201d The only place on Earth\na waiter might claim we are stupid for not knowing that a place closes early on\na Saturday is in the Czech Republic. \u201cYou won\u2019t have time for the carafe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust a glass then.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The waiter bitches up a little storm and then marks the\npaper that serves as our check. He takes the carafe from my friend. There\u2019s\nstill enough in there for a glass and my friends calls to the waiter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still have wine in there.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting you another carafe like you wanted. I have\nalready marked it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou said I couldn\u2019t have a carafe.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, but I marked it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend pours the rest of the wine into his glass and the waiter\nstomps off with the carafe, visibly upset, I suppose, that he\u2019ll have to give\nus what we asked for, which was a full carafe of wine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are maybe five waiters at this place and this older\nman who looks like The Thing from Marvel comics is the only one who works with\na set of personal rules and loopholes. He begins laying them down the moment\nyou walk in or sit down. You can only sit at this table if you\u2019re eating.\nThis table is closed for repairs. You can\u2019t have water in your whiskey, you\nhave to order a bottle of water. This table is reserved at 8 o\u2019clock, you can\u2019t\nstay here that long.<\/em> Later he\u2019ll change the rules he so vociferously set\nearlier. Those people didn\u2019t come, so you have to stay<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going to a bureaucratic office can be similar. While\nregistering my new address I was rejected three times for three different\nreasons. There was always a loophole. Not the right stamp, not the right name,\nnot the right box checked, signature was off, how ugly my shoes are. Something.\nIf you\u2019re engaged in such an activity, you can identify the moment that the worker\nfinds the loophole that allows them to say no, because it\u2019s a moment that comes\nafter intense scrutiny and it is marked by a smile.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time my friend and I finish looking through the\napplication, it\u2019s clear that I\u2019m going to visit this bureaucratic office\nnumerous times before it\u2019s done. Probably, experience tells me, five times. I\ngo to the bathroom to unload and to cry a little about my future in\nbureaucracy. When I return my friend says that the waiter has told us that we\ncan have something small before they close the garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decide not to have anything more. We\u2019re tired of the loopholes\nand the rule making, and plus our hearts aren\u2019t in this garden anymore, a place\nthat a month and a half ago was so warm and comfortable, and now is a makeshift\nstorage facility for perishables run by an asshole. The waiter comes back and\nwe tell him we\u2019re leaving and we\u2019ll pay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want anything else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I already told the bartender you\u2019ll be staying for\nanother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNah, we\u2019re done.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shakes his head, perhaps ticked that despite making\nanother rule and setting another loophole, he\u2019s unable to force us to follow\nthis one. We leave and say goodbye, mentally preparing myself for tomorrow\u2019s\nloopholes and hoping that the pub near that office won\u2019t be such a pain in the\nass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I arrive at the pub a few minutes after my friend. It\u2019s a Saturday night in mid-September and we\u2019re taking advantage of the last days of reasonable warmth to sit outside in the garden. The garden itself, however, is showing the sad signs of being prepared for autumn and winter. Several of the tables towards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/loophole.jpg?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1fG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4818,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4816\/revisions\/4818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}