Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking the question "well you can check our website". What does that mean? This is a quote. It is not a quote from any individual person, sort of an amalgam of different government operatives within the bureaucracy, of different bureaucracies. I am not just pointing out Thailand or America here. I have dealt with this in a number of different contexts especially amongst various foreign Embassies here in Thailand where depending on the circumstances you will get in front of a person which in and of itself these days, seems like a task fit for Hercules, or the Hercules of Bureaucracy for lack of a better term, but getting in front of a person due to "security protocols" used to be the big buzz word, now "COVID protocols" at least were, now that is kind of eroding, Lord knows what's next, and whatever protocols keep folks from being able to interact with government agencies on a one-to-one basis, on a frequent one-to-one basis, remains to be seen. 

The reason for the video, I have got to say man, this is one of those pet peeves I just have where and again recently I am dealing with stuff here at the firm so more and more folks that work here dealing with this more than me on a personal level but this is certainly something I have dealt with many, many times. I dealt with it just once in the past week and it got me to thinking of making this video but it is the circumstance where you get to the desk, you get to the office of a Government Office. I am not going to stipulate country or any agency whatever, this seems to be a phenomenon, it is pretty darn ubiquitous these days and it cuts across nationality, and it cuts across various inter-governmental departments and things. It just seems to be an overall trend and that is you get to the counter if you will and you are wanting to talk to somebody about the situation involving     own one's case or whatever one is trying to do, perhaps file something, whatever, and the response is, "well you can go check our website for that!" I am not checking your website, I am here to see you, to do what we are doing.

Now the thing that has really bugged me about this is twofold. One, it is the seeming desire to just not only, there are upsides and downsides. I think people think I kind of begrudge people that work in the Government. I don't actually, quite the opposite. I have a lot of friends that work in the government, various governments, be it Thai or the US, whatever. Government per se doesn't particularly bother me. What bothers me is what bureaucracies seemingly intentionally try to not be in any way accountable. This whole, "well you can go and check the website" is really just a massive symptom of that. It is a very acute symptom of that too. It is actually where the rubber hits the road because in my opinion it is basically somebody who is authorized and more than that, who is tasked with dealing with the public who at the end of the day are the people that are supposed to be served by these bureaucracies. It is basically in my opinion a certain level of shirking that responsibility.

"Check the website" is not a valid response in my opinion when somebody has taken the time and these days has expended the resources to talk to somebody in the government in person. Again, I am not pointing fingers at any one particular place just at the phenomenon generally and personally I think it is something that really needs to come to an end.