Swiss bureaucracy eats Egyptian bureaucracy for lunch

I had three steps I needed to complete to prepare the documents necessary for my Egyptian work visa before I could send them to my firm to complete the application process. I had a pile of documents (letters of reference, transcripts, a letter from the Wisconsin bar with my date of admission, etc.) supporting my firm's case that I am uniquely qualified for the job and that an Egyptian couldn't do the same job, the same argument that has to be made in most countries in order to hire a foreigner instead of a national. I had to get a stamp from the US Consulate on an affidavit where I say the info in my pile of documents is true, then I had to get a stamp from the Swiss government "legalizing" my documents (their word, no idea what it means), then another stamp from the Egyptian consulate legalizing (still no idea) the documents.

I had already gone to the US Consulate 2 weeks ago and the consular agent stamped and signed my affidavit stating the documents were true. I brought that packet of documents into the Swiss Chancellerie d'Etat this week and had to conduct the whole transaction in Italian because no one in the whole office spoke any English (the only people who think you can get by with just English in this city are the people who speak French). The woman told me there was a problem.

Normally, they could legalize my documents except that they are supposed to receive a letter from the consulate introducing new consular agents and attesting they have the authority to sign documents on behave of the US, and they did not have such a letter on file for the woman who had signed my stuff. They would not call the consulate to explain the problem and request a letter, and it could not be sent by fax, they needed the original.

Finally, they agreed that if I went back to the consulate (on the other side of the huge hill that is Geneva's Old Town, and up and down which there is no public transportation) in person and returned in person with an original letter authorizing the consular agent, they could legalize my documents.

So I walked, through the hottest weather Geneva has had all year, down the hill back to the US consulate by the lake, where I had to stand in line for 45 minutes behind a couple doing adoption paperwork (talk about bureaucracy!) until the SAME consular agent who had signed my form 2 weeks ago came to the window to help me. I pointed out to her that according to the Swiss government, the affidavit I'd paid 40 francs for was as worthless as if I had signed it myself and she took the phone number of the office back to her desk and chatted with them for some time.

She came back to the window and, I SWEAR TO GOD, she picked up a blank affidavit form...the very same they had just refused to accept her signature on...and wrote, in her own handwriting, "I So and So (names have been changed to protect the annoying) am a US Consular Agent. I am authorized to sign and legalize documents on behalf of the United States Consulate in Geneva." Then she signed and stamped the affidavit...with the EXACT SIGNATURE they had just refused to accept, to authorize her own signature.

I was like "Seriously?" And she shrugged and said that is what the woman at the Chancellerie d'Etat had said to do.

So I trudged back up the hill (stopping for a Starbucks to keep my motivation up and my chances at heat exhaustion down), took another ticket (like at the DMV) and waited in line for another sweaty thirty minutes before ending up at the same window I'd landed at 2 hours before with the same stupid signature on two affidavits now, instead of just one. They happily legalized the form and tucked So and So's signature away in a file for further reference.

Then I took the pile of papers to the Egyptian consulate where they informed me that the same legalization process (applying a stamp and signature) that had taken under a minute at the US and Swiss offices would take until the next day in their office. So I had to go back AGAIN this morning.

But I am now on my way to become a "legalized" Egyptian worker once again.