A Typical Day

Just a typical day. I got up early, because I had some government offices and banks that I had to drop by. I went to the "Department of Conscript Service" (or whatever it's called) and asked for the money I had deposited in case I went outside of Iran and decided not to come back (Don't ask! It's a long story.) Anyway, I asked for the money and had to show them my passport. The guy asked me (like a pop quiz, or like he's caught a thief,) what my ID number was! I guess I don't look like my photo (or vice versa.) Then two different officers (both colonels) viewed my passport and then signed the paper and I went off to the bank to get my money. We call this bask the "G" bank. The G bank I went to, asked me to sign three forms (twice each,) checked my ID and made me put my fingerprint on two of the forms! I mean, what teh hlel! I wanted to deposit the money in a bank, say "M" bank, in an account that wasn't mine. I asked the nice young man behind the counter (no weman in the G bank, since it somehow belongs to the Armed Forces) how could I do that, that minimized my hassle. Turns out I couldn't even get an Inter-bank check(?) (my default option (C programmers, look up the meaning of "default" in a dictionary)) and he would write me a check (a normal check, mind) to be cashed at the "S" bank and then taken to a branch of the M bank and wired to the particular target branch. Or, I could get an inter-bank check from the S bank for that particular target branch and account (which was incidentally 2/3 of the city away.) I went to the S bank, and wonder of wonders, it was not jam-packed with homo-sapiens. I decided to take option B, since I didn't cherish the idea of walking around with 5M Tomans+ on my person, or using certified travel checks(?). Believe it or not, travel checks are really hard to cash at banks! Then I had to go into one of the branches of the M bank anyway, because I didn't know the exact address of the target branch (it's name was the name of an expressway!) Anyways, I found the target branch, went in and deposited the check. Done at last. But I was very worried up till the moment that I asked the teller to double check for me whether the owner of the account I was depositing the money into was infact the one I intended. The was no other way to check that. The key into their database is the acount number (or at least it's an index) and the teller had not checked the name on the check to make sure whether the money goes to the right place. (OK. This is not a big deal. I should not be able to check peoples bank account numbers anyway.) Maybe I should mention that all these events occured in Tehran, while I live in Mashhad (~1000KM away, for those who are afraid of Google Maps.) I got out of my house at around 5:10 this morning, flew to Tehran at 6:00, did all the above (and made unrelated visits to bank "P" and my friend "E",) flew back at 1:00 PM, just finished lunch (5:00 PM) and now I'm typing these. My question is this. Why I had to make all these trips? Why I had to fly to Tehran in the first place? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious and painful for Iranians and unavoidable. You see, all this happened because there is no sharing of useful information between even parts of the government and banks. There is no infrastructure, and better that there isn't, for I know what would happen if they even attempt at such a thing. Disaster, in all its incarnation would befall us. That's why I said it seems unavoidable to me. In a perfect world, the thing that would have happened could have been something like the following scenario: On May 11th, A computer in the Conscript Services Department would realize that my exit permit was valid till May 10th. It would check with other relevant databases to see whether I was infact in the country or not (you see, it would have authorization to do so, in my case.) Then, since I was firmly inside the borders of my beloved country, it would issue an order to the bank to release my security deposit and put it in an account designated by myself when I filled out the forms. See, that would be logical to put such a field on the exit permit application form, since I figure more than 90% of the people who leave the country in fact return, and more than 99% of them actually want their money back (shameless!) Anyway, the G bank would then deposit the money (since the money is under the will of the Dep. of Conscript Services) into the said account. I could then collect it or whatever on May 11th, first thing in the morning, from the space between my chair and my keyboard, at my home. All the above does not mean that the phisical way went actually bad. It was even quite streamlined, considering your typical, run-of-the-mill office red tape. But that's the limit of the physically-and-personally-doing-things way. I wasted 11 hours of my time, a lot of money (around 100'000 Tomans) and a not unconsiderable amount of this country's, and the world's resources to do a thing that barely needed my intervention. Why? Because no one in this country has the will, knowledge and power to make things better. And you need the three factors near each other, or something will go wrong. Anyone thinks I'm crazy? What I'm asking for is insane? One more curious thing I almost forgot. The whole account system of bank G (or a good part of it) is implemented in a single account in the S bank! Think of a filesystem inside a file on another file system. Or an entire OS inside the address space of a user-task in another. Or some (seemingly) intelligent beings inside the mind of another.