oh, the incompetency

Gaaaaaahr!
When will this reign of incompetency end? I should preface this with a disclaimer that this is not another Paris is worse than anywhere else on the face of the planet rant. Incompetents are everywhere. You name a place, and I'll pretend I'm worldly enough to know something they're spectacularly incompetent at.
Darwin, Australia: Processing construction permits
Adelaide, Australia: roadworks
Hanoi, Vietnam: Driving
America: Tact and diplomacy in world politics.

Paris, France: Read the blog.

I got a recorded message call today from the ANPE (employment agency). Telemarketing to the unemployed? Hello? We're looking for work. Just call us ok? We'd like the opportunity to chat with someone once in a while. So I got this message, recorded by someone who was clearly learning how to talk underwater and say complete phone numbers in under 0.5 of a second (seriously I had to listen to the message FIVE TIMES to get it). Anyway, I called the number, because they'd made it sound like I meant to, and the old dear on the other end didn't know very much of anything about it and was asking ME questions to specify (I'm sorry, the mermaid didn't elaborate, search me).
Earlier in the day, I connected to a public service website to try and find out about the precise conditions to be eligible for a particular type of work contract (there's about a zillion of them, contracts for one legged people with headlice, blind people with urinary tract infections, young people, old people...nothing for spectacularly pissed off 30 year olds with Masters degrees though, funnily enough). First number was wrong, second rang out and third was a paid service (I'll get onto that later), in which the lady on the other end, in a spectacular display of empty grammatical prose, managed to explain absolutely nothing. 'It means what it means' was the best I got out of her (and when it doesn't mean anything at all? What then huh?)
Yeah, so paid services. A lot of phone numbers to unemployment agencies, social security, dole offices have per minute rates. People, who by definition have no money, have to pay to try and do something about it. Explain that one if you will.

But despite being perpetually pissed off and such, I did a good deed today, I weighed an old ladys grapes for her because she couldn't see the buttons on the scales. She thanked me for not telling her to get lost (serious).