Of LAW and DISORDER

Since the numerous journeys between Jabatan Imigresen (Department of Immigration Malaysia) and my apartment took out a significant chunk of $$ from my budget, I decided to wisen up and take public transport early in the morning; 7:25am to be precise.
And so my day began -- walk for 5 minutes from my apartment to the monorail train station, wait for 3 carriages to go by -- all packed to the brim, give up because it took 22 minutes of waiting and no hope of getting into a carriage, walk out, wait 7 minutes for cab, get to KL Sentral (yes it spelt that way) station in 30 minutes, take KLIA Transit train to Putrajaya (government headquarters), get out, get lost, ask for help to no avail, wait for bus for 8 minutes and then this...
Asked the bus conductor, "Excuse me, which stop is the immigration department?" Bus conductor, "OK OK, I know" while cringing his face and two and half whiskers.
So the entire 40 minute ride through blissful Putrajaya, I'm subject to cringe-worthy pop and tons of Bahasa Malayu chatter on the radio instead of an announcer announcing the next stop (which makes me miss the stop I needed, pay again and take the bus back -- conductor still doesn't answer question, everything is still mysterious). Thankfully, I own a pretty fancy phone, have internet and Google maps -- these tools were my ONLY shining light this blessed morning.
The entire process of getting from KL to this department has taken roughly 2.5 hours; traffic, ignorance, bad decision making on my part (should've taken a damn cab all the way!), missing persons at ticket counter, waiting for bus with lots of angry people, slow people, confused people and myself -- a combination of all the above emotions as a result of having fed off of everyone else's negativity + burning off some of my own previously acquired bad joojoo and seething with resent for how everything works (or rather doesn't).
At this point, I'm thinking I'd rather bribe someone, pay the extra Ringgits for a taxi and maybe even take out a loan for a lawyer and an agent in order not to deal with the slow, painful process that is known as people (and bureaucracy -- for the people, by the people? Really?).
Finally reach the office at 10:39am. Turns out, you need to stand in a queue of 600 people (rough guestimation) to get a number/token before you can proceed to see an officer who will or might deal with your case. This interview with officer also depends on whether you get out of the queue before 3pm (cut off time for said number/token).
Now, let's do some word problems -- given that the people here go to lunch between 12 and 2pm, the odds of getting this number are ... Well... Pretty odd.
Also given that the line has not moved forward for the past 15 minutes (35 as I edit this piece) gives me very little hope that it will. So let's do some math -- 600 people moving at 0 persons per hour = how many people within the next 4 hours? And within that number, what are the odds that one of them will be me, given that it's a linear queue, but with lots of people who cut in line?
Part 2: Take the number from previous problem and continue with this. So, IF by some chance I happen to be one of the people in this odd probability to get a number before 3pm, I'll have to wait in another queue with said 600 people before my number is called.
So, given that there were 600 odd people before me and the office stops working between 4:30pm (out of officer's own accord) and 5pm (officially), what are the odds that I'll get my case reviewed today?
Part 3: I overstayed my visa in Malaysia for 12 days, true, my fault and I wanted to fix it since the day I discovered this, to be precise, 11 days ago, on Saturday, 10th August. Because I could not pay the overstay fine at the airport (like in other countries), I had to wait till Monday, 13th August to go to immigration headquarters to pay. On Monday, I was told that there's only ONE officer in the entire state who reviews such cases and he, as it's still Raya/Eid season, is away on leave till today, Monday 19th August. In the mean time, I have overstayed 23 days altogether -- 9 days not of my own doing.
Problem is, according to the "laws" here, past 20 days, people are subject to a case, instead of simply being allowed to pay a fine and go.
If this is true and I don't get someone to review my case today, and the number of days I have overstayed are prolonged -- should I be charged with 12 days of overstay? Or should it be turned into a case? Would it be really lawful to charge me with something I was trying to correct in the first place but was unable to due to no fault of my own but the strange system which allows for officers to leave on holiday without assigning another officer to the duty?
Makes me wonder, all of this "development" that we're all trying to achieve and public transport and public offices and public whatever else you might think of, who was it really made for? Who comes up with the horrid processes? Are we all just mules? And why don't some of us (mostly me) understand the importance of a 3 hour lunch break when you know there are tons of people waiting for you?
It's also funny how people in power and people at the bottom of the food chain (service people, bus drivers, attendants etc) have so much in common; they think they're doing you a favour, you need to act according to their rules and if you fail to do so you're immediately disqualified from receiving their good graces.
We're all somehow still indentured slaves to each other. I know we all go through this but what's to say that this is right or necessary? Wasting days of our lives in futile queues, waiting for someone to give us a paper, waiting for someone to even look.
What freedom? What cow dung.
Lies, I tell you. They feed us lies everywhere saying we have the ability to control our lives and exercise our rights.
Every single day since the 10th, I've been waking up with a knot in my stomach hoping for some extra patience or compassion to deal with every single day I spend indentured to this planet's masters.
Feeling #slightlyholierthanthou #ridingthehighhorse #done.
But then again...I don't know why the world has to be this way -- cruel, stupid, inefficient. So you tell me!

Elizabeth Bass is a freelance marketing consultant, who'll pick a surf board, under the sun over an office with no fun.