Bureaucracy

I have just read some of the postings made by Emily on http://emintheusa.blogspot.com/ , and espeically about her bureaucratic fights in California. By the way, I recommend that my readers check Emily's accounts of living in the USA. They're very interesting and readable.

Anyway, it reminded me of the bureaucratic fight I've just been having trying to register and pay for a conference in June this year. The three-fold problem is that (a) the conference is in Korea, (b) the organisation running the meeting seems to be based in the USA, (c) and there are two complex alternative payment methods. This makes getting answers to questions a little difficult, and I certainly have a few beefs about the payment system.

Let me explain further. The first payment method wanted me to use Visa of Mastercard via a Korean site. Well, I have a Visa card, so entered the procedure confidently. And, encouragingly, the site had a fair amount of English, but the final act, after entering all my details, required me to click one of two buttons. Alas, the two buttons had Korean script which I do not understand. Even if I could read the script, I don't know the language! So, that proved abortive and I had to cancel out of the process despite the site telling me not to. I suppose there's a risk that I did pay and I'm trying to track that down via my first bank's e-banking web-sie.

Anyway, I assumed that I did not pay and tried the second advertised method - inter-bank transfer. Armed with a document full of account numbers and business addresses I spent half an hour at my second bank's premises in Armidale. I went to this bank because I knew from previous occasions that its transfer fees were cheaper than bank number one. According to them, some of the required information was not there, but they tried anyway and I'll know on Monday - two days from now - whether this approach was successful. What a mess!

On the plus side, I successfully paid for my conference in Galway and then contacted the organisers of the Winnipeg meeting asking how I should pay them. Their response was gratifying and unexpected - there is no registration fee! Wow, this is the equivalent of a free lunch.

AS