Anatomy of Failed Design: Legislation

[Starmaker]

The [Russian] government in its wisdom used the most direct, simple and effective method to counter unemployment among university graduates. Which is:
You cannot graduate unless you have a job.

It has to be noted that universities are now obliged to provide graduates with jobs – but hey, if these were any good at all (i.e. paying upwards of $200 per month), the professors would have applied themselves.

So the new system forces unemployed graduates to either find a job that does not require higher education in the first place (e.g. custserv), or find a fake job and forfeit the university's obligation, or take the job offered by the university and resign the moment they get their hands on the diploma. Which sort of defeats the entire purpose. Three times.

That's what my situation looked like three weeks ago:
I've graduated and all I've got is a shiny badge and a book about Leontovich. Neither serves as proof of higher education. The University secretaries are not going to issue the diploma until I provide a signed charter. The University job center officials won't sign the charter until they see my future employer's letter of approval. And of course the company won't sign the letter of approval until they actually see the diploma.

It was eventually decided that if someone could sign the letter and not be roasted alive by the company director in case something went wrong, it'd be the director himself. A massive shitstorm happened as the approval letter went up and down the chain of command as people were wondering "who the fuck that girl is that we're jumping through hoops just to get her a job instead of doing something constructive" but I got it in the end.

Also, the icing on the cake: I nearly lost my apartment that day. There's a little thing called "privatization" still going in Russia which as of now requires people to show up on three particular days at a particular time in order not to be told to gtfo of the apartment. (It's actually a well-designed law because it does what was intended, that is making people's house tax money vanish mysteriously and producing empty apartments out of thin air). Still, I managed to arrive on time and I'm currently typing this and enjoying the view from my apartment window.

...Something that I'll be able to do for two years at most, and after that another building will block the view completely, due to the infamous condensed development plan (a.k.a. everything but buildings and roads is wasted space). FUCK LEGISLATORS.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Almost makes you feel like having a populist uprising, huh?
Oh wait...

Anyway, congratulations.

[Username17]

I totally feel you on the crap that is living in a post communist kleptocracy. It blows. But if it makes you feel any better, we fired all our legislators in February and ran with a suspended parliament until May. Things did not improve. That's when the President decided to crack down on immigrants and arrest everyone whose visas were held up in limbo because the foreign police take 4 months or longer to process a document.

I got arrested. Twice. Fuck post-communist kleptocrats.

-Username17

[Crissa]

Well, that's what you get when operations are approved by the CIA ^-^

-Crissa

[Koumei]

...I thought you made "kleptocracy" up and were just being insulting (given klepto- means "To steal people's shit"). So I Googled it. Wow, it's a real term. Awesome.