“Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”
– Franz Kafka

The DTOP is Puerto Rico’s version of the DMV or Ministry of Transportation.  Basically, it’s the place you go to get your driver’s license. Yep; if you want to experience the place where outrageous bureaucracy and a lack of logic exists, this is the place to go. Firstly, here you have to stand in line and pay for a stamp. Then you have to go over to a doctor’s office and have them fill out a medical form, which you also have to pay for separately. Well, let us just say it’s a sham; they do not check your eyes, or your blood pressure, or your heart rate, or any vital sign that might be important if you are going to operate a 2,000-lbs. weapon.  Nope. He asked me how tall I was, how much I weighed, and signed off that I had all four of my limbs. I paid him $20.00 for this useless form. Then I had to go back in and wait another 2 hours before my number came up. When I got to the desk, I showed them all of the required documents (again), which was also amusing and redundant and maybe even illegal. Why does the place that gives me permission to drive a vehicle, need my social security card? I don’t need to be employed to drive a car, do I? And the original at that? Why do they need my passport, and my Green Card, and an electric bill? All I need is a card/permit that grants me permission to drive legally. Why is it as if I am joining CISS? Or the CIA? Then at the end of the day, it turns out that Puerto Rico, as being only a U.S. territory, is not allowed to accept foreign licenses…  So I, at this point, had wasted 3 hours, and $31.00 only to be denied. (I also need to point out the stamp and doctor’s cert. were separate expenses/taxes.  I still would have had to pay for my new license.) But why didn’t the lady at Information, who is supposed to check off that we have all of the correct documents, not say something, then? Needless to say, I was furious! I did get my money back for the stupid stamp and doctor cert., but it is obnoxious how horribly inefficient Puerto Rico’s government is!  But we’re not alone. We all have our horror stories; we all can’t stand, no matter where we live, how bloody awful it can be having to deal with government offices and services. No one is ever happy about it and yet, the problem persists. So why are your workouts like that?