A Day in the Belgrade Police Station

I walked through the metal detector at the entryway of a nondescript concrete Communist-era building. The pace through the detector was quite fast - I question whether anyone could even be singled out and searched. Following a quick check at the information desk, we headed over to a large room, framed by numbered windows. At nearly every window was a queue, ours being no exception. While waiting for my turn, I peered through the portions of glass windows not obscured by information and notices. Piled on desks and shelves were huge file folders containing worn-looking documents. By the outside window were some antiquated machines, some of which I did not even know what they were for.
When it was my turn, Goran, our school expeditor, spoke on my behalf, explaining that I needed a police clearance for my job in Chennai. With a smile, she gave us a form to fill out and wrote down some helpful information that would expedite the process at the next place, 5 floors up.
With nine people crammed into an elevator with a 5 person capacity, we waited until the next round. Standing in line again at this window, I could see similar bulging, worn file folders piled high on all book cases and available spots. Taking a look at the writing by the helpful lady downstairs, the worker quickly processed the form and directed us back down to the first lady. Waiting in line at the original booth, Goran instructed me to stay while he left to get something. Shortly thereafter, he returned with a chocolate bar and explained that this lady had expedited background checks on the school's custodial staff, saving each worker several hours of potentially lost work time. As the lady gave me the official, stamped document, Goran handed her the bar, thanking her again.
Considering the bureaucracy and visible amount of non-digitized paperwork , I was amazed at how quickly the process took - less than two hours. It wouldn't have been possible without Goran's know-how and the lady's helpfulness. Indeed, the chocolate bar was worth it!

That evening I took the police clearance document (written in Cyrillic) to a co-worker, whose husband is a lawyer and offered to do the official translation. Thanking him for his service, I took the tram back home, glad that the paperwork for the police clearance was now over

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