My Kafkaesque Day (very long, and not for the paranoid)

[dungrollin]

I've just been cleaning up some old folders on my computer, and 
found this, an account of a day I spent at Heathrow Airport on April 
8th 2003, which I thought might make someone laugh.

Dungrollin


This morning I left the house at 07.30 to get the 726 bus to 
Heathrow to pick up a parcel from Abidjan for my boss.  An email 
from Air France said that I should turn up at "Heathrow" (for non-
Brits a very large London-serving airport) – nothing more
specific than that, with the reference number, and collect the 
parcel. Being good-natured (or "naïve") I believed that, and thought 
I'd be in work by about 11:00 at the latest. 

I didn't know where to go first, so I tried the Air France desks
in terminal 2.  A very unhelpful woman told me I was at the wrong 
place for cargo (which I knew).  I asked her if she could perchance 
give me some information about the right place, and she said I 
should go to "the cargo area."  Eventually I got a bus number out of 
her (H30, for future reference) and went to the central bus station 
to wait.  

I got the bus to "the cargo area," which is, of course, absolutely 
huge and served by three bus stops.  Naturally, I got off at the 
wrong one, but after asking unhelpful woman #2 at the BA cargo 
reception desk I figured out where I was, and that I had to retrace 
my steps. A 20 minute walk later, I asked several VERY unhelpful 
people, and was eventually pointed towards a door underneath a sign 
saying "Air France cargo Reception".  That looked promising.  

After a ten-minute wait while unhelpful man #1 dealt with someone 
else, he then tapped my reference number into a computer, frowned, 
tapped something else in, and told me I was in the wrong place.  
Apparently Air France Cargo has *two* buildings at Heathrow, and my 
parcel was at the other one, which was, of course, on the other side 
of the airport, near terminal 4.  The unhelpful man pretended to be 
helpful by drawing me a map.  

I got on another bus, and (after a little panic during which I 
thought I'd gone too far again, but then realised the unhelpful 
man's map simply had two roundabouts on it instead of five) found
my way to HCH II, which turned out to be behind a security fence 
with a sliding gate in it for cars, and a fearsome-looking turnstile 
for pedestrians.  After shouting and pressing all the buttons on the 
intercom (which had a helpful sign saying "Speak clearly into 
speaker then check in at reception") and seeing no resulting change 
in status of the turnstile, I followed a car in through the sliding 
gate, and tried to check in at reception.

"Reception" turned out to be a 1m wide corridor with the left-hand 
wall made of chip-board, there was a square hole cut in it at face 
height with an empty desk behind it.  "Reception" was clearly being 
refurbished.  A sign on the wall said "Please make yourself visible 
to the video camera up and to your right, so that our staff can see 
you and promptly assist you."  Their staff were obviously blind or 
incompetent or both, because I waited for 15 minutes before a (weird-
looking, and moderately unhelpful) bloke did finally turn up.  I 
gave him my reference number and he tapped something into a 
computer, frowned, tapped something else in, and then told me that 
Air France hadn't yet cleared the parcel through customs, so they 
couldn't give it to me.  He advised me to phone Air France and
ask them why not.

This was when events took a turn for the worse, and things started 
to get out of hand.

I called my boss, since I didn't have a phone number for Air
France immediately to hand, and left a message on his phone saying 
could he phone Air France and ask them why on earth they'd told us 
to pick up the parcel if it wasn't ready to be picked up yet, and 
when he'd done that call me back on my mobile and let me know what 
to do. I finished the call, rolled a cigarette and lit it, looked at 
my phone again, and realised my phone was broken.  I then spent ten 
minutes taking the battery and sim card out and putting them back in 
again, in the vain hope that something nasty would be dislodged and 
it would resume functioning.  No luck.  I set off to find a phone 
box.

I actually found a phone box not too far away (piece of luck #1) and 
called my boss, who sounded relieved to hear from me as he'd been 
trying to call my mobile (which wouldn't have worked anyway, even
if it hadn't been broken, as I probably had the battery out of it at 
the time).  My boss said that he had a form from Air France saying 
that the customs stuff HAS been completed (he is certain about this, 
because they're trying to charge him fifty quid for it), I
pointed out that this didn't help me. Neither did it help the bloke 
who wouldn't give me the parcel because he didn't have the right
form.  

My boss then whined that he didn't have an Air France phone
number. I patiently explained that he might be able to call 
directory enquiries, or look on the web for a phone number, (the 
only reason I didn't do it is because of the broken nature of my 
mobile, and limited stash of change for the pay-phone – I foolishly 
thought it might be easier if my boss did it for me). My boss 
says "Oh yes, I didn't think of that". I gave him the phone number 
of the phone box and sat down to smoke and wait for him to call me 
back.

Half an hour later (by which time it was 12:00, I was giving up on 
the idea of getting any work done, and thus starting to enjoy 
myself) my boss called me back to say that I had to go to customs 
myself and get the paperwork completed.  That was fine, the building 
was marked on the map the unhelpful-bloke-before-last gave me (the 
one with the missing roundabouts – piece of luck #2). So I headed 
off that way, which was about a twenty-minute walk (no buses here, I 
had by now entered the seriously un-public-friendly area of 
Heathrow). 

When I arrived, I was faced with unhelpful woman #3, who said "they" 
(meaning some people in the next room) might be able to help, and I 
should take a numbered ticket and wait my turn.  I sat down in a 
horrible room with a flickering strip light and a smelly new carpet 
(both of which conspire to send me to sleep in seconds) with ticket 
number 42 (honestly).  The screen read 37.  Not too long to wait, 
you might think.  I timed it.  It took 55 minutes of waiting and 
sleeping before 42 was called, and ... guess what?  

They couldn't do the paperwork because Air France hadn't sent them 
the air waybill. Don't ask me what the hell one of those is, I was 
beyond caring. I was given a fax number and told to phone Air France 
and get them to fax the air waybill to the customs chaps. By this 
time it was 13:10, and my boss had gone to lunch.  I supposed that 
he'd be about half an hour, so I left a message asking him to phone 
Air France, giving him the fax number, and went outside for another 
much-needed cigarette.  

By 14:10 I still couldn't get hold of my boss, no matter how many 
cigarettes I smoked, and no matter how often I called, so 
thought "**** it, I'll do it myself."  So I called directory 
enquiries and got an Air France number, which I called, and was 
given another number, I called that number and was given still more 
numbers.  

By this time my twenty pees had run out and I began to 
gleefully waste £1 coins on fifteen second phone calls, and ended
up spending £5 because the payphone didn't have a follow-on-calls 
button. (By this stage I was, as I say, beyond caring.)  I finally 
found someone who had the necessary piece of paper, and was actually 
prepared to fax it immediately to the necessary number, then I 
picked up another ticket and waited for another 30 minutes in the 
horrible smelly room to tell the first helpful woman I had met all 
day that she should damn well have a fax of the ******* air waybill 
now.  

She told me that because the parcel did not contain personal 
belongings (it was actually dead insects) it counted as commercial 
goods, despite the fact that it was of nil commercial value.  For 
commercial packages the woman told me that she should really wait 24 
hours for something or other to clear, and that she should have a 
VAT number to go on the form.  

Something of the day's stress must have shown on my face. I may have 
been close to tears, or suicide; though more probably murder. I 
suppose that this woman must have to deal with people in that 
condition all day every day – perhaps she has learned to recognise 
the signs. She was certainly well-hidden behind bullet-proof glass. 
Anyhow, for whatever reason, she took pity on me, and said that 
she'd clear it just this once (piece of luck #3).

Joyously, armed with a piece of paper that would force the unhelpful-
bloke-before-last to give me my damn box, I walked the 20 minutes 
back to the being-refurbished reception of HCH II, expecting a) to 
be arrested because the box I was trying to pick up was actually 
stuffed with bags of heroin; b) to be told I need more ID as non-
passport ID is not acceptable; or c) to be sent on to yet another 
******* building.

After paying my £51 (presumably for the dazzlingly efficient 
service) and signing stuff, and taking copies of forms, and receipts 
and all that sort of nonsense ... I was sent on to another ******* 
building!

Actually, it was only around the corner, so it wasn't too bad.  I 
saw a guy driving a small loading truck, who asked me what I wanted. 
I waved my pink and white form at him, (though if it would have 
helped, I'd have waved my underwear too) and he said he'd
find my box for me, and asked me where my car was.  He looked at me 
very oddly when I said I got the bus.

Anyway, finally, after all that effort, at 17:00, I set eyes on my 
box!!!!!

It was huge, and weighed 15 kilos (30lb).

How I got it back to the bus stop, onto the bus to terminal 4, off 
the bus and onto the tube I will never know.  I *do* know that the 
only way I got it from South Kensington tube station to my boss's 
office was by stopping every 10 yards for a rest.  I got to work at 
18:30.

Thankfully, I was greeted like a hero by my boss, who then took me 
to the pub and bought me lots of beer.