UK Visa Application

I had to get entry clearance into the UK if i'm planning to stay there for more than 6 months.. which I am.

Anyway, I think the British High Commission (BHC for short next time) outsourced the visa application to this company called VFS. Originally, I thought that VFS was just the name of the department in BHC that handled visa applications... but the fact that it was located in some small office at robinson road, instead of the high comm building along tanglin, sort of hinted that VFS was a separate entity (by small, i mean, REALLY small. there was this long table that sat three "counter" staff, and a small 2ft by 1 ft table that had another person sitting behind. besides the 20 or so chairs infront of the "counters", that's the entire office. small right?). The website was another giveaway: www.vfs.com.sg. ok, so it MUST be a singapore company (since only singapore registered companies can have .com.sg). The last giveaway was that all the staff at the office were singaporeans. by itself it meant nothing of course. but together with the other little things, i conclude that it must be a company handling the visa application process for BHC.

anyway, i was told to visit the website when i called to check on the price of the visa. "What's the website?" I asked. "Vietnam, France, Singapore dot com dot sg". So I wrote down: "VFS". And the first thing that sprang to mind was: Visa For Sale. Haha, seriously you know. It's just so natural. And not entirely false, given that it cost me 264 for the visa plus 20 service charge.

and i really got to complain about the inflexibility of the staff there, or perhaps singaporean office workers in general. the working hours were stated precisely on the signboard: 8.30-9.30, 10-12.30, 13.30-15.00. passport collection hours were from 1600-1700. yesterday, I went down to collect my passport. i arrived at 3.15 because my mum dropped me off.

i went in and one lady asked, "what are you doing here?"

i said, "passport collection"

"passport collection only from 4-5"

"can i wait here?"

"no, we have a backlog~" mumbles off

wtf? it was raining so heavily outside la, can't even let me sit around and wait? if you need your break go ahead la! i'll be sitting quietly. if you need to gossip to your friends go ahead la! i won't make any faces. I promise i'll maintain a stone-face.

i didn't argue, knowing that it was not worth it to risk my entry clearance. so i walked out of the building looking for something to do. the rain was so heavy i got wet even without leaving shelter. and the building had NOTHING for me to do. I spent a lot of time observing the rain. It doesn't rain so heavily in London or in California. The rain here can really be described as a "downpour". The rain is so heavy, it falls in sheets. With the wind, you can see the sheets of rain moving, shifting in shape, down the road. The rain got so heavy that every palm tree along that road dropped a leaf. eh.. leaf doesnt sound right.. each leaf was as big as a branch. So there was a thunderous "boom" when it dropped.

anyway, after some pacing outside the building, i paced inside the lobby, infront of the elevators. after deciding that i was attracting too much attention from other people who were also waiting for the rain to stop, i decided to go back to the seventh floor (where the office was located). and i paced around some more. sat on a ledge. went to the bathroom. paced around more. looked thru the messages in my phone. paced outside the office. went thru my wallet for receipts to throw. paced around more. at 3.50, another man came. he knocked on the door and was told, "4pm ah". another man came, this time this man knew the people working. he knocked on the door, was led inside, and i heard some casual talk. at 4, he left, the door was open, and i went in, together with about 3 others who have also arrived.

i took a seat. 2 minutes later, this filipino lady came in and strolled straight to a counter. the counter-person said "need to take ticket ah". wah, there was a mad rush to take a ticket number. i wasn't quick enough, and by the time i was going to stand up, there was already a crowd at the ticket machine. so i decided to act seh and calm and stayed seated.

wtf? i came first and now i'm last? anyhow, after the crowd had their tickets, i stood up and took a ticket.

finally, when the counters were ready, the buay paiseh guy that got the ticket first went straight to the counter. hahahaha, guess what, the lady at the counter said that i came first. see? seh counts la! also, not arguing the first time (when told that i can't wait inside) probably also gave the impression that i was a nice, guai, polite person, that deserves to be served first anyway.

*hooray*