I’ve got a buddy who used to guide books for a living - Lonely Planet, Rough Guide,
all that stuff - and so, as a result, he has been everywhere. Name somewhere in the world,
and I (almost) guarantee he’s been there. For twenty-five years or more he has steadfastly
maintained that, of all the places he’s been to, New Orleans was the best.
Life being what it is, I’d never got round to going, though I’d always meant to. Then,
a few months back, I got invited to go and speak at a conference there. Whoopee! You
can imagine how delighted I was to accept.
I don’t think I am alone in this, but Covid-19 has turned me into Mr Lastminutedotcom. What’s
the point of making plans in advance, if the goalposts are only going to get shifted on
you? You’re better off doing things at short notice, so as to leave less scope for disruption.
I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this, so I rather think this same mentality is why
global supply chains are so completely up the swanny.
I also don’t think my approach is so cavalier or irresponsible. The government’s own literature
states that travel laws “may change with little warning”. Well in that case, why
plan ahead?
Anyway, I was hoping the US borders would open up to UK visitors “with little warning”.
No such luck.
I was supposed to be going this week, so a couple of weeks ago I started to make plans.
Though the US has said it is opening itself to foreign visitors from early November, my
speech falls on the wrong side of the threshold and currently, “It is not possible for most
British nationals to enter the USA if they have been in the UK ... within the previous
14 days.”
I didn’t have the time to do what some fellow Brits I know have been doing, which is to
go to Mexico and spend two weeks there before crossing the border. (I probably should have
made the time, but that’s another story. Who doesn’t want to go to Central America
for a fortnight?)
My employer in New Orleans thought that I might be able to attend if I get a Business
Visa. “If you are traveling to the United States
in connection with a speaking engagement you may be eligible for a B-1 visa” says the
US Embassy website. So I began the process of applying for one of those.
I’ve found with most things in life that when a body is competing for your custom,
it will try to make your experience with them as good as possible. Where their service falls
short, they will try to improve it. This applies to everything from shopping and hospitality
to entertainment and IT.
Where there is no competition for your custom, especially when the state is sole provider,
no such dynamic exists and so the user-experience tends to be less pleasurable. Compare getting
an appointment with a GP to getting a table at a restaurant. This dynamic was especially
at play with the US Embassy website.
90 minutes it advised me to put aside to file my application. Who has got 90 minutes to
fill in a form? I’m a busy and important man.
There was all the usual guff such as whether my intention in visiting the United States
was to overthrow the government or commit acts of terrorism. My experience, admittedly
limited, is that these are not the kind of things subversives declare upfront.
There were all sorts of other questions. It wanted to know where I went to university
and what I read. For a five-day business visa? That was 30 years ago. Nevertheless it wanted
to know the date I left. It wanted to know the date I got divorced. HTF am I supposed
to remember that?
It wanted to know all my social media profiles - my Linkedin page, my Twitter and Facebook
handles, my Youtube address. I found that rather worrying, I must say, a big step in
the Orwellian direction of China’s social credit scores. Next step I guess is that they’ll
want to know who your followers are as well.
And, time after time, it simply logged me out of the site. I would have to go through
the process of typing in my bar code number (copy and paste not an option) again, redeclaring
that I am from the United Kingdom - repeatedly having to drop to the bottom of the dropdown
menu to find United Kingdom, though sometimes, mysteriously, the United Kingdom would disappear
and you would have to find England. If I ever become president of some new independent nation,
I’m going to call it Aardvarkia to save my citizens time on dropdown menus. Pages
I had completed would have been lost. In fact, often the act of saving them meant I was logged
out of the site and I would have to start over.
Finally, after three hours, I got to the end. Now to pay the $160 fee and book in an interview.
Only then did the website inform me that the next available interview was not until May
24, 2022. In seven months time!
Why oh why could they have not told me that at the beginning of the form-filling process?
They tell you it’s going to take 90 minutes, why not tell us that too? It would have saved
me a morning’s work, and their website a load of bandwidth.
No wonder we hate the bureaucrats. Stupid questions. No respect for your time. And no
competition from outside to force them to improve their practices.
Who does one even complain to? Or just notify, to tell them something that isn’t working
on their site. Google would fix it in an instant. But the US or any other government? No one
cares.
It’s enough to make you an anarchist.
Meanwhile, that trip of a lifetime to New Orleans. That’ll have to wait. And all those
struggling jazz musicians will lose my custom, and the custom of many others besides.
Thanks very much for watching. I’ll be back with another video very soon. In the meantime,
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Cheerio