About 50 years ago, I was at the Department of Internal Affairs in Johannesburg. I had waited for about two hours to be processed so as to be issued with a South African identity document. I had filled out the forms, I had the photos, I had my birth certificate.

At the counter, the clerk looked at the form and said: “What are your surname?” So, I said it are Mackenzie-Hoy. He looked at this and then asked: “Hoy? Chinese?” I had had this question before. “No,” I said, “Scottish.” The clerk looked at me narrowly. “Chinese, Scottish?” I shook my head. “No. Scottish, Scottish. As in the Island of Hoy. In Scapa Flow, Scotland.”

This didn’t suit him. He looked again at the form. “This is a problem. You are only allowed 12 letters in your surname. Yours has 13.” I shook my head. “No, it’s only 12.” He shook his head. “It’s 13 with the dash. You will have to be Mackenziehoy or Hoy.” And, thus, for the next 20 years, I became Hoy. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had met my first Hoop Jumper. To explain: a Hoop Jumper is a person or thing in authority who briefly holds sway over you. At some moment, if you want to progress in some matter, you have to do what they ask, no matter how stupid or unreasonable.

You will not realise it, but they are everywhere. Like an enemy jamming radio and radar signals, they are very gently increasing their hold on your life and communication abilities. Their aim is to trip you up in your life purpose. Some examples: say you are trying to create a password to register for something like a news site. In point of fact, you really just want to read the news, view the ads, if you must, and move on. But no, you must register. So, you fill out your name and press ‘enter’. The message comes back: “Fill out a valid password”. So, you type your password, say: “happydog”. The message comes back: “passwords must contain eight letters”. So, you type: “averyhappydog”. The message comes back: “passwords must contain at least one capital letter and one special character”. So, you type: “Avery@happydog”. Then the program asks: “Save this password to log on in future”. You click the “yes” button and, finally . . .

Thus, this interaction has wasted your time. You will never have to enter the password again (it’s been saved) and the whole exercise is pointless. But not to the person who programmed this pointless process, the Hoop Jumper, who has made you, metaphorically, jump through hoops.

It’s more common than you think. Perhaps you were stupid enough to apply for one of the Covid-19 financial relief packages offered by government or the private sector. If so, you will note what had to accompany your application form: two years’ financial statements, black economic-empowerment (BEE) certification, a letter of good standing from the Compensation Commissioner and . . . three months’ signed management accounts. Now, “signed management accounts” are monthly financial summaries of sales, income and expenses used by the CEO and CFO to determine what the business must do next. In a consulting practice like mine (five staff), we really don’t need or have these; they are for large firms. But! No “signed management accounts”, and the application fails. Who made this a requirement? The Hoop Jumper. Result: few applications from small businesses.

Another example: you want to supply a large industrial corporation with your services. You will have to sign on to their vendor list. You find, to your surprise, that you are supposed to submit a “safety file”. Since you will not be working on site, you don’t know why this is. But you find out, no safety file, no vendor registration. Hoop Jumpers. They’re everywhere. Asking for your updated BEE certificate, certified bank registration letter . . . anything, just to waste your time and make them seem useful. And, dear readers, it will get worse, trust me. Hop, hop.