Kafkanada

Il y a un truc qu'on a aussi découvert, c'est que les Canadiens adooooooooorent élaborer des procédures administratives compliquées. Sans rire, je pense que les trois premières semaines, on devait être à une moyenne de trois formulaires par jour, sans compter les pièces qu'il faut bien fournir avec. Quelques exemples concrets ci-dessous (pas grave si vous ne les lisez pas, on les met là juste parce que ça fait du bien):

• ouvrir un compte à la banque

On a besoin d'un compte commun pour aller faire les courses et de cartes VISA (parce que sinon c'est trop compliqué). On se dit: bon, on y va en famille (pas possible de laisser Julie aux grand-parents) et on va régler ça en un bon quart d'heure. Que nenni, il faut d'abord prendre rendez-vous pour dans dix jours (pas de place avant). Ensuite, y passer une heure et demi et expliquer que non, on n'a pas d'historique de crédit au Canada simplement parce qu'on n'y est que depuis 2 semaines, etc., etc.

• avoir accès au labo pour y faire des manips (le job de Denis, en gros)

Même accompagné d'un prof, il faut être équipé correctement pour pénétrer dans le labo (même si on n'y fait que du polissage, comprendre par là qu'il y a des disques abrasifs qui tournent avec de l'eau): blouse, gants, lunettes. On va donc à l'économat pour avoir une blouse. "Ah, mais est-ce qu'il a son Safety passport?" Euh non. Et pour l'avoir, il faut:

1. remplir le Safety Orientation for new students and employees (20 pages à lire + 10 pages de formulaire)
2. lire le Introduction to the MTRL Safety Program (13 pages)
3. lire le HSE Chemical Safety Manual (77 pages)
4. suivre les Departmental Safety Seminars (4h, avec les mêmes informations quand dans les docs, d'abord expliqué, puis avec un example de ce qu'il faut faire, puis un exemple de ce qu'il ne faut pas faire, puis réexpliqué)
5. suivre le HSE Laboratory Chemical Safety Course (2 demi-journées - demain, youpi)
6. lire le Safety Manual for the Materials Engineering Department (qui est affiché dans tous les labos ...dans lesquels on n'a pas le droit d'entrer sans blouse!)
   

Bon, j'y ai quand même appris qu'il ne fallait pas utiliser une bouteille de gaz si on ne sait pas ce qu'il y a dedans. Ou alors en ces périodes de grippe porcine mexicaine H1N1 que Les étudiants et le personnel ont le droit d'éviter la maladie (Students, faculty and staff have the right to avoid disease). Nous voilà rassurés. Que les courageux aillent voir la page des formulaires de sécurité du département, ça fait rêver...

• rejoindre une coopérative d'auto-partage

Après avoir rempli un formulaire online, il faut passer un quiz (online) sur le fonctionnement (comment réserver une voiture, qui paie pour la nettoyer, etc.). Après ça, il faut fournir un historique de crédit (voir plus haut) et un historique de ses accidents dans la province (information centralisée par le bureau des autos local). Ce dernier point se fait simplement par téléphone, à la condition de tomber sur un employé qui ne confonde pas le Claims history du Driver's abstract. Après, il suffit d'aller dans les bureaux de la coopérative, de re-remplir deux formulaire, d'écouter un bénévole réexpliquer ce qu'on sait déjà puisqu'on l'a lu cinq fois et on reçoit la clé magique. MAIS C'EST PAS TOUT: après, on reçoit un petit email qu'on est prié de lire jusqu'au bout pour activer son accès online. Je ne résiste pas à vous le mettre in extenso (bon, il ne sort pas très bien, mais bon):

Hi Denis,<br /><br />Welcome to CAN!<br /><br />Here's the info on booking on-line. It’s been a well received tool by many CAN members. They love that they can arrange bookings, make extensions and cancellations as well as review past invoices and CAN-nection newsletters any time they want to!<br /><br />First, a few caveats. When you log on to the on-line system you are taking full responsibility for your bookings. Any mistakes made can have unfortunate and costly ramifications. We have no grace period for cancelling or changing bookings after you hit BOOK IT, so be very sure that the booking as it appears is what you want, in the car you want and for the right day before clicking that BOOK IT button.<br /><br />(A quick reminder of our cancellation policy -- if you cancel a booking more than 24 hours before it starts, there is no charge. If you cancel with less than 24 hours' notice, and the same car is later booked by another user, there is also no charge. It is *always* cheaper to cancel than to keep your booking.)<br /><br />Read the confirmation to be certain all is well and well understood. If you don’t see a confirmation screen you don’t have a booking.<br /><br />You should be very sure you are booking the car you think you want by viewing the MAPS - by clicking on the Location name. Maps (or pretty much anything underlined in the site) will either link to a detail of your booking or assist you to make the booking you want. Taking the wrong car, double-booking cars, or taking a car earlier than you have booked it can really snowball through a lot of people’s days and require paying costly cabs and relevant CAN charges.<br /><br />As costly as any mistake may be for you, it’s even more frustrating for other drivers not to be able to access cars they booked, or to be late for important meetings (or miss them altogether). Plus the cars could actually go unused during a busy time, which is such a shame for the people who could have used them.<br /><br />All of these caveats are also true for bookings made via telephone with staff or the after-hours service. It’s just that this is probably our only chance to reiterate all of this to you before you start to make your own bookings.<br /><br />*** You will not be able to make bookings on-line until you have read all of the material contained here. ***<br /><br />That said -- here's where you go...<br /><br /> https://bookit.cooperativeauto.net<br /><br />At this web address you'll find the log-in screen. Before we go too far along the path about how to log in: PLEASE, please always *log out* when your session is finished. We've gone to great lengths to provide security to your account, but if you do not log out, anybody can gain access to your booking and personal information. That said...<br /><br />1. The screen will prompt you for your account number. This will be 09-7387 -- the two-digit year you joined, followed by a hyphen and then your membership number.<br /><br />2. The screen will then prompt you for your password. We wanted the password to be something not terribly crack-able, but also something you'll be likely to remember or have readily available - so we used your driver's licence number. You will be able to change your password on the MY MEMBERSHIP screen after you log in (and we'll be able to help you if you forget it).<br /><br />3. Once you're in the site, you will immediately view MY BOOKINGS, which is the page to refer you to all of your upcoming bookings as well as access history on your past bookings. This is also the section of the site you will use to CANCEL, SHORTEN or EXTEND your previously confirmed bookings. *Do not extend bookings by creating a new booking.* Doing so may leave you open to "no show" charges if we don’t catch your error during our monthly invoicing phase. We need one booking *only* for each trip log filled out.<br /><br />The interface to cancel or change bookings is fairly intuitive and there are two possible pages to use to do what you wish. On the MY BOOKINGS page, you’ll see two buttons at the bottom of the screen to either cancel or change the booking. In the "Select" column, mark the checkbox of the booking you wish to change or cancel, then click on "Change Booking" or "Cancel Booking". CanWeb will ask you to confirm your changes, and then display a screen confirming all the changes or cancellations it's made. This method works especially well if you want to change or cancel a lot of bookings at once.<br /><br />You can also change or cancel your bookings on the BOOKING DETAILS screen. From the MY BOOKINGS section, click the red, blue and yellow icon in the "Details" column beside the booking you want to modify. Scroll down to the "Modify this booking" section and use the drop-down lists to make the adjustments you wish for. Just remember that in this section, hitting the "Cancel Booking" button will indeed cancel the booking right away.<br /><br />4. To make a NEW BOOKING, click on the menu by that name and the screen will load. CanWeb will pre-load the current date and the time closest to NOW that you're able to book. It will also pre-load your location preferences in an interactive grid so you can immediately see the availability of your nearest/most preferred cars. This grid is interactive in that you can click on the light grey "available" blocks of the grid to fill in the details of your booking at the top of the screen. (Try clicking on a few blocks and you'll see this auto-fill in action, modifying the Start, End and Location data at the top of the page.)<br /><br />If you wish to see a different selection of cars in the grid, click on the "Select Cars" button. There you’ll find two ways to choose your preferred locations. At the top of the screen are various lists that will let you choose specific locations, entire neighbourhoods, or even cars with particular accessories like bike racks and CD players. To add new preferences without erasing the preferences you already have, be sure to hold the Ctrl key done while clicking new choices. (Mac users should hold down the "command" key, which looks like several overlapping circles.) Remember that the more locations or cars you choose, the longer it will take to display your NEW BOOKING grid.The other way to choose which cars display on the grid is to enter a location at the bottom of the screen -- the default is your home address. CanWeb will search for the closest vehicles to the location you've entered.<br /><br />Once you've chosen which vehicles you wish to view in the grid, you must tell the system either to SHOW ME THESE LOCATIONS ONCE or to ALWAYS SHOW ME THESE LOCATIONS. Selecting ALWAYS will save your changes for future visits to CanWeb. You can change your preferences at any time by following these steps again.<br /><br />5. You don't have to use the grid within the NEW BOOKING screen. If you know exactly which dates and times you need, just use the drop-down lists at the top of the page to set the start time, end time, and location for your booking. Then you just click BOOK IT and either your booking will be confirmed, or you'll be asked to try your request again. There is no "are you sure" pop-up window after you click BOOK IT: please double-check that the details to the left of the BOOK IT button are correct *before* you click the button. If the info is incorrect, just continue to adjust it using the drop-down menus until you have the correct information.<br /><br />Here's a nifty trick for getting a car at when you want it. On the NEW BOOKING screen, fill in the top section with the start time and end time of your booking, but leave the location *blank*. When you click BOOK IT,the system will pull up every vehicle in the fleet which is available for the times you've selected. From this new page, you can then filter your choices by neighbourhood, by vehicle type, or even by specific accessories (CD player or whatever...) using the "Filter" button at the upper right. You can book any of these choices by clicking on the smaller, underlined "Book It" words. Alternatively, you can click on "Try This Booking Again" to reset your dates and times.<br /><br />WHEW!!!<br /><br />It may take a bit of time and experimentation to develop your own preferred style of booking cars, but we're sure you'll love the access and flexibility. CAN staff will always be available during our regular office hours - 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. seven days a week, or 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on statutory holidays - to help you through any difficulties.<br /><br />6. Once you've made a booking, if you like you can enter a short note about it. This note will appear on your invoice, next to the booking information -- a handy way to keep track of why you needed the car. You can also add or edit notes on the Booking Details page, which we mentioned above. This feature is only available on-line -- staff do not have access to edit your notes!<br /><br />On the MY ACCOUNT screen, you can view all of your past and current invoices, as well as choose how you'd like to receive them on the 15th of each month: by mail, by e-mail in text format (plain text like the e-mail you're reading right now), or by e-mail in PDF format (a file attachment you can open with Adobe Acrobat Reader). Here is also where you can view your current balance, along with past or current issues of our monthly newsletter, CAN-nection.<br /><br />8. On the MY MEMBERSHIP screen, you can view your current address, phone number and e-mail address. You can also change your e-mail address or your password.<br /><br />9. Finally, from any screen, you can see the LOGOUT button at the top of the page. Once again, it's a very important step to take in order to preserve the security and integrity of your account with CAN.<br /><br />Now, in order to become a "Web booker," please send us an email with a subject line of 'I accept' plus your account number. We've just taken a lot of your time to explain the process, but we want to be very sure you have read this info thoroughly and that you understand and accept the instructions as well as any charges that may be incurred through errors on your part.<br /><br />Happy Sharing!<br /><br />Ron<br /><br />************************************************************<br /> CAN Co-operative Auto Network: a car sharing co-op<br /> 205 - 470 Granville Street Vancouver, BC V6C 1V5<br /> 604.685.1393<br />************************************************************<br /><br /><br />

Et c'est pas fini: quand Odile rejoindra aussi la coop (quand elle aura fait elle aussi son permis local de British Columbia), pour qu'elle puisse rejoindre le même compte, il ne suffit pas qu'elle ait le même nom et la même adresse que Denis, ni de présenter un certificat de mariage, ni même une lettre signée de Denis. Non. Il faut remplir un formulaire spécial, signé par Denis, par Odile et par un témoin qui certifie qu'il a bien vu les deux personnes signer le papier en même temps. C'est pas beau, ça? Ca donne presque envie de pleurer...

Allez. Promis, le prochain post aura de nouveau des photos.

PS: Et encore, on vous a épargné les formulaires d'immigration ;-)