At the mercy of rule-obsessed, nameless bureaucrats

All farangs are aware of the constantly changing goal posts at their local immigration office on such things as 90-day reports, multiple exit visas and visa extensions and renewals. And somewhere the Immigration Department must have a warehouse stacked to the rooftop with multiple photocopies of our passports, which we are required to provide on each visa extension and at other times, despite the fact that most of us these days hold electronically-chipped passports. The taxation office has its own sets of rules and demands for paperwork, and so it goes on from on government department to another.
This mindless rulebook-driven bureaucracy has permeated the private sector. Today I received in the mail a notice from my bank that a long disused account with a zero balance had been debited three satang as a maintenance fee. Apart from the question of how you can debit a zero balance, the fact that the paper the notice was printed on and the postage would have been far in excess of three satang seems not to have occurred to anyone.
I am reminded of the old adage, “Rule are made for the guidance of wise men and the adherence of fools.”
David Brown
Rayong