It causes great pain to keep writing about negative stuff. Try it for a while, you'll see. You run out of adjectives trying to explain "stupidity." I decided to go to the airport to clear my goods. Here's what happened. My decision wasn't made because I'm brave to face the personnel at Customs. A friend that I have and works there was going to show me through. The way they "look" at you causes shivers down your spine. Gosh I'm not bringing in parts for the assembly of weapons. Shucks I'm a small businessman dealing in Computers for the last 25 years. Treat me as if I'm first and foremost a person. As my friend and I walked into the area to start the process the "ugliest" person stopped us and asked us in a gruff tone (the ugly) where we're headed. When she was told that I had goods to be cleared she roughly told us that we had to wait until a flight that had just landed had cleared. We walked away for her looks was like a bat outta hell. Now, tell me, wouldn't you like to ask a few questions: like can you tell me how long this would take; how would I know that the flight had cleared...I mean really how would I know that the flight had cleared...would a light be blinking; would a neon sign let us know the state of Customs... Ok got me. So here's where my friend comes in. He took my documents and went into pay. Now how hard was that. Couldn't I go in and paid just as he did? Then he comes out with the documents and we head on over to the Amerijet bond where the goods are held. We met a guy at a desk sleeping...woke him up with some artificial coughing and tapping on the desk. With bleary eyes peering at us he took the documents. I got the goods and opened the boxes and then we had to wait on Customs officials to inspect. Time speeds on as it is wont to do. And we're waiting and more people come got their goods and opened it and waited. Then lo and behold they appeared. Then in an ad hoc manner they started to check. Not in any order. I was second there and almost last to be checked out of about a dozen persons. The Customs woman went to one guy and brazenly took "one of this" and "one of that" from his boxes of hair and other accessories. Amazing. But I guess the guy took this "loss" as payment for not completely doing an "inspection. She told him to close the boxes and proceeded to the next person. Realizing there's no system I approached her and she said after looking at one box "I'll be back in five minutes." Five minutes took over one hour. Then the two customs officials reappeared and did what they considered their "job." After the inspection my documents were taken and then amazingly took over another hour till it was signed (a 30-sec job) and given to me. With this kind of "work" is it any wonder that we're a third-world country.
So how can it improve.
1. Deal with people in the order they come. Inspect their goods and immediately have the documents sent to the customs office where you have another customs official doing his documentation. No accumulation.
Try to respect other people's time. We cannot afford to spend a whole day sitting doing nothing while you do things in a slow and time-wasting manner.
