The Commissioner of Oaths
Today I had the dubious pleasure of visiting our local commissioner of oaths to get a document attested.
I have noted on my blog lately that humour has vanished from it. This appears to be because it has very much been a lot of the same thing every day and mot much has happened that has caused me to look at the funny side of life.
This normally is a reaction to me been angry, and realising that throwing my toys out of the cot is not going to achieve anything, I then look for the funny side and make a joke out of it to stay sane.
Imagine if you will – dear four readers – you are taken into town by your HR Officer who knows where the commissioner of Oaths is and you are presented with a wizened old man, sitting in front of a typewrite which is older then he is, and he has “Government Pension Service” Calendars on the wall – Going back to 1999.
This appears to be his retirement provision. The office is a wooden hut that makes the daily temperature in my office (27 C) seem like Siberia in Winter in comparison.
And this poor lad (a) needs glasses and (b) does not appear to read English very well at all. He further insists on reading through the entire document at his pace. One trusts that he keeps items like this confidential.
That said, all he needs to do is to make me take the prescribed oath. Anyone who has had a document attested knows the answers are “yes”, “no” and “yes’. Get this done at a local cop shop in SA and you talking 3 minutes tops. My poor OAP (old age pensioner) has to really think about what the answers should be.
After telling him what answers to write, he finally, with shaking hand completes his part of the program. Then comes the Name Address and Stamp.
You a commissioner of Oaths, right. You stamp things Right…. SO one would assume his stamp is close at hand. Nope. His stamp is in a drawer on the other side of the office, in a plastic bag tied up. OAP also must have the same problems with his legs that my dear old mum had. It takes him a while to get out of the chair, toddle across the office, dig in the drawer and battle to untie the knot of the plastic bag.
OAP battles back again to his side of the wooden shed, flops down into the chair and … stops. On the desk where he recovered his stamp is….
The stamp pad.
Now a little the wiser, I leap up from my comfy plastic chair and retrieve the pad for him, fearful that getting out of the chair twice in such a short time will induce a fatal heart attack and mean that I will have to find another commissioner called “Joshua Ensah”. That of course due to the fact he has already written his name in the provided space.
He tests his stamp on the pad in front of him and satisfied that the rubber stamp is the correct one, stamps the form in the correct place.
Finally the date and place has to be written. Ohh – He works out that he has a date stamp in his little bag of tricks and starts to stand up. Ever the gentleman – well not really but as mentioned before, I really do not want the poor old bugger to pass away, I once again leap up and retrieve his plastic bag of stamps.
Some shuffling around in the bag and the requisite stamp is found, tested, verified correct (after advancing the date) and applied to my form.
Success!!!!!
Pay the man GHC 50.000 (ZAR 35.00, $5.83) and I walk out of the hot box proudly holding the most difficult form I have ever had attested in my life.
And to think when I was in Swaziland, I was a commissioner of Oaths because I was the General Manager there.
I love this place!!!!!
I have noted on my blog lately that humour has vanished from it. This appears to be because it has very much been a lot of the same thing every day and mot much has happened that has caused me to look at the funny side of life.
This normally is a reaction to me been angry, and realising that throwing my toys out of the cot is not going to achieve anything, I then look for the funny side and make a joke out of it to stay sane.
Imagine if you will – dear four readers – you are taken into town by your HR Officer who knows where the commissioner of Oaths is and you are presented with a wizened old man, sitting in front of a typewrite which is older then he is, and he has “Government Pension Service” Calendars on the wall – Going back to 1999.
This appears to be his retirement provision. The office is a wooden hut that makes the daily temperature in my office (27 C) seem like Siberia in Winter in comparison.
And this poor lad (a) needs glasses and (b) does not appear to read English very well at all. He further insists on reading through the entire document at his pace. One trusts that he keeps items like this confidential.
That said, all he needs to do is to make me take the prescribed oath. Anyone who has had a document attested knows the answers are “yes”, “no” and “yes’. Get this done at a local cop shop in SA and you talking 3 minutes tops. My poor OAP (old age pensioner) has to really think about what the answers should be.
After telling him what answers to write, he finally, with shaking hand completes his part of the program. Then comes the Name Address and Stamp.
You a commissioner of Oaths, right. You stamp things Right…. SO one would assume his stamp is close at hand. Nope. His stamp is in a drawer on the other side of the office, in a plastic bag tied up. OAP also must have the same problems with his legs that my dear old mum had. It takes him a while to get out of the chair, toddle across the office, dig in the drawer and battle to untie the knot of the plastic bag.
OAP battles back again to his side of the wooden shed, flops down into the chair and … stops. On the desk where he recovered his stamp is….
The stamp pad.
Now a little the wiser, I leap up from my comfy plastic chair and retrieve the pad for him, fearful that getting out of the chair twice in such a short time will induce a fatal heart attack and mean that I will have to find another commissioner called “Joshua Ensah”. That of course due to the fact he has already written his name in the provided space.
He tests his stamp on the pad in front of him and satisfied that the rubber stamp is the correct one, stamps the form in the correct place.
Finally the date and place has to be written. Ohh – He works out that he has a date stamp in his little bag of tricks and starts to stand up. Ever the gentleman – well not really but as mentioned before, I really do not want the poor old bugger to pass away, I once again leap up and retrieve his plastic bag of stamps.
Some shuffling around in the bag and the requisite stamp is found, tested, verified correct (after advancing the date) and applied to my form.
Success!!!!!
Pay the man GHC 50.000 (ZAR 35.00, $5.83) and I walk out of the hot box proudly holding the most difficult form I have ever had attested in my life.
And to think when I was in Swaziland, I was a commissioner of Oaths because I was the General Manager there.
I love this place!!!!!
1 Comments:
Clearly the attesting of documents are not a highly demanding job. You checked if he moved the date forwards to this century ? ;)
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