Lines are often places for socializing, especially if they are animated and composed predominantly of people who for generational reasons do not spend all their time glued to their smartphones but prefer to try to chat up or stir up the crowd with apocalyptic statements against counter operators or supermarket cashiers.
And the way of standing in line is one of those aspects that characterizes our Bel Paese, often as a - negative - touchstone compared to other European realities where it is not necessary to put the queue eliminator and the small number in every place where more than two people are gathered waiting, as a self-defense system to prevent fights and scuffles from breaking out.
The Italic allergy to waiting is an innate gift that is only rarely set aside in favor of a sympathetic and rule-abiding attitude. And the allergy becomes a real outburst when the queue is not real but virtual and therefore there are no ways to skip it, circumvent it or expedite it by resorting to ruses and subterfuges.
Such as when it comes to applying for the issuance or renewal of a passport with a view to an imminent departure for a nice leisure trip to discover the beauties of the Far East. In that case there is little to sob, shout or attempt lateral sorties: the rules are precise, the procedures codified, the timeframe incompressible. All one has to do is to arrange for revenue stamps, certificates and passport photos (let them be done right, or else you start all over again) and then bide one's time.
There was a time a few months ago when it seemed that all of Italy's 60 million or so inhabitants absolutely had to renew their passports for a work requirement abroad or for their best friend's Thai wedding. The system, for reasons that have never been fully clarified, had jammed up and police headquarters were unable to make appointments quickly, leading to complaints and parliamentary questions.
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Fortunately, the situation in the meantime seems to have improved, and the emergency seems to have been recessed: the police headquarters in Vibo Valentia reports that the time for issuing passports has been “cut down”; in Avellino it has fallen below 10 working days; in Ancona it takes only 3; in Perugia it succeeds in 1. And the latest news is that Poste Italiane will begin issuing passports in post offices in Bologna, Verona and Cagliari and throughout their provinces, so no longer just in small municipalities. From mid-September the service will also start in Milan, Rome and Naples.
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Another document, another story of waiting and more or less broken promises. The electronic identity card (CIE) is issued by municipalities and is supposed to be the magic key to an endless array of benefits and services, being equipped with chips and other state-of-the-art identification elements. Don't waste a lot of time making yourself look good for the passport photo: the one they will print on the CIE will be tiny, in shades of gray, and it will take a magnifying glass to notice any imperfection or disharmony in your look.
The request must be made to the registry office of your municipality of residence, but then the paperwork is handled by the Ministry of the Interior. Open days and special openings are still being held in some areas to allow everyone to reserve the new document, a sign that perhaps the supply chain is not yet fully broken in. In any case, even for the ID card, the chaos recorded in the early months of 2024 seems only a memory, and to see of new lines and people lined up waiting will probably have to wait until spring.
But, as they say, when there is health... In fact, the problem is precisely when this intangible but vital element turns out to be somewhat lacking. And then one has to get ingenious between family doctors, co-pays and reservations to devote oneself to the appropriate checks. And in this case the wait becomes really nerve-wracking also because of an incredible blackout that has hit Italy in a particular way: we're out of doctors.
That's right, because Covid aside - easy to say - the Italian public health system suffers from an almost chronic shortage of personnel, so much so that in some regions retirees are called back into service and in others it is Cuban doctors (yes, from Cuba) who ensure an essential service.
During the pandemic, visits deemed “non-urgent” or incompatible with the restrictions of the period were postponed, with the result that even today there are waiting lists of several tens of thousands of services to be disposed of. Easy to bear if the suspected pathology is mild but much harder to digest otherwise. Not least because in this area, unlike document requests, there are no equal timeframes and democratic bureaucracy: those who can get their hands on a credit card find a private, top-notch health care facility to appease or cure them. Everyone else can get on a waiting list.
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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