![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A bit of annoying, work-related news
Aug. 7th, 2007 07:47 pmThere's a lovely word in German which, I believe, doesn't have an English translation: "Querulant" It means a person who engages in (partly) legal warfare with public authorities, though not in order to fight for some just cause, but merely to drive home a point she or he alone can see.
Please believe me, I'm not the kind of public servant who likes to sit in the ivory tower and look down at hoi polloi. I know from experience that dealing with authorities can be incredibly unnerving and try to understand and help people who don't seem to get along with what the Embassy does.
But...
Yes, there's always a but.
There's this Austrian citizen, former Turkish citizen, whose identity I have no wish to protect but will do so all the same. Let's call him Mr. F.
Mr F is a man with a mission.
I first met Mr F. (on the phone) in 2004, while still in Vienna. He had married a woman from Turkey and insisted that she be given a visa the same day, although she didn't have an appointment and, back then, visas could only be retrieved the day after the sticker had been put into the passport (something to do with the glue).
So he caused a masive crisis, and in the end his wife got the visa the same day she'd applied for it - without an appointment, needless to mention.
Three months later, he called my then-head of department and demanded an appointment, in order to have a written protocol of the whole event drawn up. My then-boss, who was nice but a bit of a twerp, said yes. And so Mr F. came to the ministry and sat there for a whole 3 hours, dictating an incredibly convoluted and totally uninteligible protocol to one of my interns. After 3 hours, I thought it was enough, went there and asked him, not kindly but politely, to leave the premises, because we had other things to do than write a protocol, which is something we just don't do in the first place. He tried to throw me out of the office, whereupon I went to get my boss, told him "You let him in, you get rid of him NOW!", and Mr F. was despatched.
Maybe a year later, Mr F. intervened for a person totally unrelated to him, because he wasn't satisfied with the way their residence permit application was being dealt with. Another Mr F.-trademark-turmoil, which got me, a guy from the Minister's cabinet and my predecessor in Ankara a disciplinary complaint (Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde, impossible to translate). It's a mere formality, and nothing ever comes of it.
Then, I was posted to Ankara, and Mr F. thought he had to intervene because of an other person's (not related to him, again) visa procedure. She'd submitted 2 applications, both before my time, and both had been rejected. The matter had been handled according to the rules, but Mr F. wrote letter after letter, called the Ministry, called me... In the end, he threatened me, telling me during one of our phone conversations, that "I was going to regret the way I'd treated him".
That was enough for me to write a report to Vienna, asking permission to ban him from the Embassy building, should he ever show up in Ankara. I'm no coward, but I don't like having my teeth smashed in by some madman. Permission was granted.
Mr F. divorced his first wife, and Cupid struck again - Mr F. married another woman from Turkey. He did, of course, inform both me and the Ministry beforehand that he was going to accompany the lovely Mrs F. No.2 to the Embassy, in order to apply for a residence permit. He wanted a special appointment, which he got. Then the Ministry said, "Oh, well, if we don't allow him to enter the Embassy building, he might turn to the media" and lifted the ban. I already had a headache from gnashing my teeth.
So Mr F. showed up with his new wife, and the application procedure went more or less smoothly - disregarding the fact that he demanded to talk first to Doris, then Gabriele and then myself, and was furious because neither the Ambassador nor the 1st Secretary were available.
Last Tuesday, his wife got the residence permit.
And now, the punchline:
Friday last week, Mr F. went to the public prosecutor and filed a complaint against the Ambassador (who'd never done so much as talk to him on the phone) and myself, for abuse of authority.
This isn't seriously serious, but it isn't nice either. Most of all, I have no idea WHY. The fun factor in all this is, of course, that the Ambassador got denounced too, although she doesn't even know the guy.
As I said, it's not all that bad, but "Ankara" and "abuse of authority" does ring a bell with Austrian public prosecutors - we had a major visa scandal, after all, and people formerly posted to Ankara were implicated (trial still running, as a matter of fact).
So I don't know whether to laugh or go *headdesk*
Knowing me, I'll go for laughing in the end, because it makes things much easier.
Please believe me, I'm not the kind of public servant who likes to sit in the ivory tower and look down at hoi polloi. I know from experience that dealing with authorities can be incredibly unnerving and try to understand and help people who don't seem to get along with what the Embassy does.
But...
Yes, there's always a but.
There's this Austrian citizen, former Turkish citizen, whose identity I have no wish to protect but will do so all the same. Let's call him Mr. F.
Mr F is a man with a mission.
I first met Mr F. (on the phone) in 2004, while still in Vienna. He had married a woman from Turkey and insisted that she be given a visa the same day, although she didn't have an appointment and, back then, visas could only be retrieved the day after the sticker had been put into the passport (something to do with the glue).
So he caused a masive crisis, and in the end his wife got the visa the same day she'd applied for it - without an appointment, needless to mention.
Three months later, he called my then-head of department and demanded an appointment, in order to have a written protocol of the whole event drawn up. My then-boss, who was nice but a bit of a twerp, said yes. And so Mr F. came to the ministry and sat there for a whole 3 hours, dictating an incredibly convoluted and totally uninteligible protocol to one of my interns. After 3 hours, I thought it was enough, went there and asked him, not kindly but politely, to leave the premises, because we had other things to do than write a protocol, which is something we just don't do in the first place. He tried to throw me out of the office, whereupon I went to get my boss, told him "You let him in, you get rid of him NOW!", and Mr F. was despatched.
Maybe a year later, Mr F. intervened for a person totally unrelated to him, because he wasn't satisfied with the way their residence permit application was being dealt with. Another Mr F.-trademark-turmoil, which got me, a guy from the Minister's cabinet and my predecessor in Ankara a disciplinary complaint (Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde, impossible to translate). It's a mere formality, and nothing ever comes of it.
Then, I was posted to Ankara, and Mr F. thought he had to intervene because of an other person's (not related to him, again) visa procedure. She'd submitted 2 applications, both before my time, and both had been rejected. The matter had been handled according to the rules, but Mr F. wrote letter after letter, called the Ministry, called me... In the end, he threatened me, telling me during one of our phone conversations, that "I was going to regret the way I'd treated him".
That was enough for me to write a report to Vienna, asking permission to ban him from the Embassy building, should he ever show up in Ankara. I'm no coward, but I don't like having my teeth smashed in by some madman. Permission was granted.
Mr F. divorced his first wife, and Cupid struck again - Mr F. married another woman from Turkey. He did, of course, inform both me and the Ministry beforehand that he was going to accompany the lovely Mrs F. No.2 to the Embassy, in order to apply for a residence permit. He wanted a special appointment, which he got. Then the Ministry said, "Oh, well, if we don't allow him to enter the Embassy building, he might turn to the media" and lifted the ban. I already had a headache from gnashing my teeth.
So Mr F. showed up with his new wife, and the application procedure went more or less smoothly - disregarding the fact that he demanded to talk first to Doris, then Gabriele and then myself, and was furious because neither the Ambassador nor the 1st Secretary were available.
Last Tuesday, his wife got the residence permit.
And now, the punchline:
Friday last week, Mr F. went to the public prosecutor and filed a complaint against the Ambassador (who'd never done so much as talk to him on the phone) and myself, for abuse of authority.
This isn't seriously serious, but it isn't nice either. Most of all, I have no idea WHY. The fun factor in all this is, of course, that the Ambassador got denounced too, although she doesn't even know the guy.
As I said, it's not all that bad, but "Ankara" and "abuse of authority" does ring a bell with Austrian public prosecutors - we had a major visa scandal, after all, and people formerly posted to Ankara were implicated (trial still running, as a matter of fact).
So I don't know whether to laugh or go *headdesk*
Knowing me, I'll go for laughing in the end, because it makes things much easier.
