Ronald Reagan once cleverly joked in a speech, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Man, was he right on.
Working for the City of El Segundo for almost 30 years, I gained occasional and insightful first-hand knowledge of governmental bureaucracy gone wild. I’m acutely aware of the potential train wreck involved when in need of any government assistance. However, it never seems to ease the pain when I become engaged in an official administrative nightmare.
A few years ago, I began the process to obtain my passport. I had done my research, procured all of the necessary documents, went to the local post office, took the oath and watched as the postal worked sealed the oversized envelope containing all of my required papers and dropped it into the outgoing mail pouch. I had even paid an extra $60 to expedite my processing, assuring receipt of my passport within two weeks. Not so fast Mr. Whalon!
About a week later I received a short, but sweet email from someone in the passport office stating my passport cannot be processed at this time for the following reason. Below in bold letters it read, “YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE DOES NOT COMPLY WITH OUR REGULATIONS.” The email then proceeded to explain exactly what I needed to do if I wanted my passport.
I’ll admit I panicked just a little bit. I immediately called the number provided and talked to a pleasant woman who informed me that I needed a certificate of birth that had my birth registration date on it. Since I was born in Connecticut I needed to call their vital statistics office and purchase an official copy from them. What ensued proved to be a bureaucratic quagmire of epic proportion.
I won’t even begin to relate the number of phone calls made, documents sent, or incorrect information given to me by the myriad uncaring, monotonous voices on the other side of the line. I was stunned at the number of different answers I received when asking the exact same question to different workers. Three different times I was promised a call back on the same day. Still waiting! However, I am happy to announce that the departments I’ve been dealing with have extremely efficient staff in their finance departments. How do I know you ask? Because they have charged my credit card twice for over $50…for nothing! During this ordeal I also learned that the state of Connecticut contracted out for these services.
So after three weeks of blood, sweat, tears and a few beers, I was finally informed of the catastrophic snag preventing me from receiving my birth certificate. My driver’s license shows my first name as “Pete” and my birth certificate shows my first name as “Peter.” No “r” on my ID, that’s it! After twenty days when I was finally enlightened about the missing “r,” I laughed, believing the guy was making a joke, attempting to cheer me up. Nope, he proved to be deadly serious. Of course, he had no idea on how I should proceed to get my hands on the coveted certificate. Oh, and for your information, in case you end up in a similar predicament, you can’t speak to a supervisor directly, however, they will email you by the next day regarding your status. Still waiting!
On a happier note, if everything I’ve been told recently comes true, I will have received my birth certificate by the time you read this. If not, turn on the nightly news and you might catch me being handcuffed and perp-walked for my latest response to government inefficiency and bureaucratic red-tape