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