Setting conditions on public services: a daily farce in Spain

The citizen who demands without papers: the daily war at the counters

Anyone who has ever visited a public office recognizes the scene. A citizen shows up at the traffic office, a notary's or the town hall; demands a procedure; and when asked for their ID, permit or inspection card, the answer is not "of course", but a snort. Some even question the need to identify themselves, as if the rules were a civil servant's whim. The paradox: the less prepared the user arrives, the more arrogant they tend to be.

The citizen who doesn't bring the paperwork

The range of cases is as broad as it is absurd. At the post office, someone comes to collect a package for their child without an authorization letter; when asked for ID, they reply "what for?". Another arrives at a government office with a fixed idea: "my lawyer told me to come here", with no papers, no ticket number, no appointment. And there are always those who try to negotiate which requirements can be skipped. In the end, the civil servant repeats the only phrase left: "These are the rules for everyone".

The other side: the civil servant in the spotlight

The issue has another side. Those who serve the public are paid to do so, and complaining about customer service when that is the job is, at the very least, questionable. Moreover, the taxpayer funds that counter. But there are also those who argue that paying does not excuse a civil servant from doing their job well, and that Spanish bureaucracy turns the simple into a labyrinth. Between the user who arrives without papers and the public employee who hides behind the rules, the relationship is broken.

So the question is almost philosophical: do you have to be a fool to show up at a public service without the requirements and then complain? Or, conversely, do you have to be one to put up with a system that makes everything difficult? Perhaps stupidity is distributed more evenly than it seems.