Some years ago, I needed to get an visa for urgent travel to China, a process that required me to fly down to SF and stand in a very long line at the Chinese consulate. When I finally handed the woman there my forms, she promptly stamped them and said "you need to take these to Window 2", pointing around the corner. So I walked around the corner...

...where *the same woman* swiveled her chair around and proceeded to check the stamp that she had just applied.

I would have been annoyed if I wasn't in so much awe at discovering the purest form of bureaucracy.