"Clients" Suck

[ltmurnau]

Back from waiting at the Passport Office, in order to drop off application to get Aki's Canadian passport replaced.

First, it took me 20 minutes just to get a number, so I could go and sit Over There and wait for someone else to deal with me. Time spent with clerk: about 2 minutes.

Second, over an hour to get to an examining clerk. Time spent with this clerk: less than 5 minutes.

Q: Why is there a 10+ to 1 ratio of time spent waiting to time actually getting business done?

A: OTHER PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY THE DIM ONES.

There were not that many people in the lineup ahead of me, and the room was not especially crowded, and no one seemed to have any particularly weird issues or conditions that the Passport Office itself was enforcing. What I saw was people, either quavery fearful oldsters or long-haired Shaggy-sans-Scooby types, filling out the frigging forms while standing in line or actually talking to the clerk - "oh, just one more thing I have to fill in here", or discovering at the last minute that they needed to turn in their old passport, or that they left their wallet at home because money and ID is involved at some point in the process, or overlooking some other thing that had been pointed out several times in the paperwork. (One obese mother-and-son pair did this, and hissed "I thought you took it off the kitchen table, no, I thought you did" all the way out. I hope they get it together and travel to some faraway place where the theories of that nice Mr. Darwin will take care of them.)

PEOPLE PEOPLE, IT'S NOT THAT HARD. It's only a short form, full of obvious things, and if you'd spend a few minutes doing your homework, WE WOULD ALL GET DONE THAT MUCH FASTER AND NO ONE WOULD HAVE TO WAIT THAT LONG.

I understand no one likes jumping through bureaucratic hoops, but if you want something routine from a desk jockey, then do it the routine way, and then all of us can get out of the lineup and on with the rest of our lives.

Okay, now I want you all to vote on the Most Pathetic Facet of this post:

A) that I sound like that uptight asshole cartoon cat, Pat from Achewood?
OR
B) that I am so smug about doing my paperwork correctly and getting done quickly?
OR
C) that I thought enough of this little Skirmish With Stupidity to post about it in my online journal?
OR
D) that I have an online journal in the first place?

Comments

[scuttle.livejournal.com]

I was one of those people last week. The clerk looked up the regulations for the countries I am going to so I could see if I needed a newer passport.

I thought desk #7 with the number machine weeded out the people who's forms were not complete? At least I had homework to do while there.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Yes, let's all have a big hand for Desk #7! That elementary precaution doubled that office's throughput, I am sure.

There is nothing and no system on earth that is absolutely foolproof- fools are too ingenious."
- some Sour Old Guy who was right

[ilna.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I want you all to vote on the Most Pathetic Facet of this post

That there are actually people as you describe, who never gave one second thinking about time efficiency, and who consequently make people who are under time pressure lose their lives waiting for them.

Like the other day, when there were these two old peeps from the building in PAris, who obviously were helping their son move from the attic room on the 6th floor. We're on the 4th, and the lift only goes to the 5th.

We were in a hurry, because w ehad 1/2 hour to get rid of several cubic meters of waste (old wood, remnants of a cupboard, various reincarnated and then decayed pieces of furniture etc.). We couldn't have started earlier, because you're suppsoed to give to get a date with the city's waste services , and you can start downloading the stuff only one hour before.

So there was that obvious conflict of interests about the lift, and what do they do ? Instead of preparing loads on the 5th floor lobby, and then filling the elevator, and then emptying it on the ground floor, one of them was keeping the elevator blocked on the 5th floor, while the other was bringing down the stuff from the 6th, then they would half-fill the lift, cram themselves in down to the ground floor and one would drag the stuff from the lift to their car, while the other would keep the door open.

Result : half a load on their side per 15 minutes, then we would rush one or two liftfull before they'd manage to highjack it again, and so on. And correlatively, we brought most of the stuff down by foot (and it was quite heavy and plenty of it), while climbing back by foot as well. It was a very hot day and when it was over i kind of fainted in a real unpleasant vagal collapse of sorts.

See, i can be even more pathetic than you.. but WON'T THEY LEARN TO BE FRAGGIN EFFICIENT ONE DAY ???

(sorry for the vent, but all of this to say that i understand all too well that it's hard to stomach this sort of things)

Smoke me a kipper

[dzherzhinski.livejournal.com]

The most pathetic aspect of your rant was that you expected anything different. That's life, boyo, so blow it out your shorts. The fact is, it's illogical and unreasonable to expect that everyone else in the world will be as efficient as you are when it comes to dealing with bureaucracy. And bear in mind the most recent stats that show 44% of Canadians are illiterate and/or innumerate to a degree that inhibits their interactions in society.

[emmabovary.livejournal.com]

People Are Stupid. You should try and do paperwork in France. Homicide comes to mind.

[scuttle.livejournal.com]

Brian! Curry on the 30th, yes?