Is Ikea Socialism in Action?

We took the family to Ikea again this weekend--Spencer now calls all stores Ikea: Superstore is Green Ikea, Staples is Red Ikea and Canadian Tire is White Ikea. I had to buy a lamp for the office so we popped Spencer into Smaland (the kids' play area) and Kate and (sleeping) Winston went to that cafe. There is also a restaurant with incredible meal deals (breakfast or dinner for $1) but the cafe always has hotdogs for 50c and deals on a few other things too. As I stood in one of the massive line-ups watching some shoppers balk and abandon their shopping carts (and you thought that only happened online!) I got to thinking...this reminds me of Socialism/Sweden.

Think about it: there is free daycare (like Sweden) and subsidized meals (like Sweden) and ok prices on goods, but definitely not the cheapest place around (like Sweden) and then the long lines to pay for the stuff (like Sweden). Well, much of what I know about the place comes from reading and my Swedish Aunt (and her meatballs) but the parallels seemed quite striking.

Enough of that...I finally got the correct completion certificate from CSI so now I can take my licensing exam from the Insurance Council of BC. Get this: I've been licensed since about 1997 for insurance, but since I was away from Canada for over 2 years it lapsed. Now they have this new system where you have to take a course (either from CSI or Advocis, formerly CAIFA) then, after passing that, applicants can take the Council's actual licensing course. Seems a little round-about, but it's a monopoly so I signed up with CSI (our firm has lots of Investment Advisors so we get a deal on the fees, and many of my past courses have been through CSI).

Anyhoo, unbeknownst to me, there was trouble brewing. I wrote my CSI exam on February 5th and was set to get the results in a week or so. I went to the Insurance Council to set up an exam sitting and got the one on February 16th. At that time they told me that my picture I.D. would have to be exactly like the name on my certificate from CSI or I can't write it. I got the certificate a day or so later but (you guessed it) it was different (middle initial instead of middle name). The Council was not budging and CSI didn't receive the many faxes I sent to get it changed in time. So, I missed that sitting, I signed up for the March 1st one (tomorrow) and phoned and faxed CSI many times to get a new certificate. Each time I found that they had not completed the task (ya, just printing it and putting it in the mail) and each time I was told it would happen...then, again, they would say that the fax was never received and no notes were made in my file for follow up--even though no less than 4 people knew about my predicament and they had a stated policy to fix it. Finally, on Friday, I called again to confirm that it was coming...again it was screwed up. So my manager ripped into one of the managers and they finally put the thing on Fedex to get it here. Well, it's in my hands now. All I have to do is take the test tomorrow.

Here's the lesson: if you're ever dealing with bureaucracy and are not 100% sure that things are going as they should: call someone. I used to hate it when my junior at work in Korea tried to confirm things with me (about 10 times a day!) but now I understand that sometimes it needs to be done (of course, there is no need to confirm stuff with me, I'm perfect).

Hope you have a great day...I'll be in the books.