CPR card pain

In order to get our car we need this magical residence card, which isn’t really a card, but a piece of paper since they don’t consider us to be real residents or something. In Oman we were given residence visas, cards, and my driver’s license is good for 10 years, but whatever. When we had to give up our diplomatic passports, we joined the ranks of the unwashed masses. :sigh:

We got news last week that our car has finally arrived (2 and a half months later, sheesh!) so Josh, Meelie, and I are parked in the CPR office this morning. We’ve been here for an hour and they have helped ONE person and are now on number two. We are next. There are probably 15 people behind us, so it could be worse, especially since all the people behind us are sitting on chairs outside of the office, with no discernible order or line. It’s all about jockeying for a spot in one of the 4 chairs inside the office. You snooze, you lose.

There are supposed to be two people working, but this guy says his computer isn’t working. Josh and I suspect he’s just playing minesweeper since he keeps clicking the mouse, but isn’t doing anything else.

Meelie was great for the first hour, but then started to get restless and was whining and crying for yogurt. A lady gave her chocolates so we should be good until they run out about 5 minutes from now.

The one lady who is actually working went over to “fix” the guy’s computer, but I’m pretty sure he’s not planning on working today. The funniest part is seeing all the different people come in trying to get non-working dude to let them jump the line. I can’t understand them, but I can guess what they want based on their facial expressions and hand motions and Josh texts me translations: “That guy wanted to prove that he had his paperwork all ready.” or “She wants a residence number for a baby, but she has to get paperwork from the hospital first.”

Entertaining ourselves with a dirty rubber band that she found on the floor . . . yes, it’s gross, but we had run out of alternatives. 
Finally, after two hours of sitting, we walked out with our papers. It only took 15 minutes to process papers for our entire family, so who knows why it took so long to finish the two people before us!
Aside from the pain of having to wait, it was fun to spend the morning with Josh and really interesting to see the different people come in and out of the office. He makes everything more interesting because he can speak the language and pick up the details that I miss, like knowing that a particular guy is from Saudi instead of Bahrain. Or knowing that the woman employee is likely to be more efficient because culturally the men care more about relationships than making progress. That became quite evident as non-working dude spent all morning on his phone, texting and talking while trying to get his computer working (supposedly). It helps to laugh at the inefficiency of it all . . .