In June he went to the consulate in Berlin for a work visa for the Met job and was forced, he said, to stand for hours in a stifling room with 50 other visa applicants. When he finally reached the consular official, “He said to me, ‘Why don’t you laugh?’ ” Mr. Stein recounted. “I said, ‘I stay here for two and a half hours standing and I am an old man.’ “