o shit. when officials go on strike nobody would notice a difference, huh? :(

I'd pay it all if I could. but as it is it's only a few dollars. good luck and much success!

it's not a strike really is just that they are effing idiotic... like I was early with my application so you'd think it had be seen to but nooooooooo...

is okay anything will do! *hugs*

in germany there is the problem that you can't sue them to do their due work, even though every officer has to swear an oath to work for people and country, to put it simple. apparently that doesn't include "working efficiently so there won't be backlog".
sometimes they are just bureaucrats, the rule is everything, common sense is overrated. and mistakes... aren't.
an urban legend here has it that not long ago, someone had a run-in wiht a bureauctrat insisting on a fact that clearly, and repeatedly evidenced, wasn't true. yet the bureaucrat insisted. so the citizen stumbled over the fat that official correspondence has to have a certain format and needs certain infos... but nobody ever ruled that it should be written on a letter-sized sheet of paper. so, suddenly that office received letters on bathroom doors, steel drums, engine hood, a slab of concrete... this was sweetened by the fact that official letters need to be stored ten years, too. so, eventually the bureaucrat gave up, facing having to handle even heavier and unyieldier things in the future...

*hugs*