You may recall I and my colleagues lost our jobs in January under strange circumstances, with everything set up to direct us towards a certain company. However, the urgency of a big order helped us to bargain for fairly good job offers in terms of pay. That was back in mid-January, but then the takeover process got dragged down in a bureaucratic hell, and we started working for that next project basically for free. But today, after the end of the period of notice and during a chaotic day of running around, my new employment finally went official. Though I still don't have my computer back...

My first impressions of my new employer are rather negative: the decision-making process, the friction between employees, the attitude of my new boss that gives me doubts about his real intentions regarding our future tasks. So for now I will wait and see how things work out, but the idea of looking for employment abroad is becoming ever more attractive.

Now for laughs, here is some of that bureaucratic hell we went through, with an attempt to keep details anonymous enough:

• The fact that back in January, we have been dissolved with immediate effect, had the result that we couldn't pay a bill for a service that arrived late. Although the costs were covered and thus our old employer could be convinced to pay, a legal mistake in the service agreement made a manager jittery. So he invited my ex-boss for a police-style hearing and then wrote him a censure, ending with the hilarious threat to fire my [already fired] ex-boss on the next occasion! (CYA.)

• For our work, some official documents need to be re-issued with our new employer named in it. The issuer of one of these did us a favour in offering a simple and for-free solution: we send them a bilateral declaration. This seemed acceptable to both our old and new employer for a month. But then it got into the hands of a lawyer, who had a nonsensical objection: the bilateral declaration doesn't legally oblige the issuer to change the name in the document! So, without considering whether the issuer would agree, the bureaucracies of two companies set in motion to create a trilateral agreement! It took me dozens of calls and emails to stop this.

• The takeover also involves a rail vehicle. Rail vehicles have so-called type certificates. When asked where it is, a colleague told: "where else, at the national transport authority!" But regardless, our old employer spent weeks looking for the document in-house in vain. Then it was finally found at the authority...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}