Of Service and Civility

“Please find attached a termination letter, new contract, non-disclosure agreement, tax form and employment eligibility form. Please fill these out and sign them and send them back as soon as you can.

I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Best,

HR”

Ah great, red tape. Of course there is no escaping it. It’s one of those unpleasant things in life that you just have to do. Now let’s see, how do we print in here.. 2014 and we have enough computing power in our telephones to send man to moon several times over, but printers still suck. Okay, section A. Name, surname, date of birth. Damn what’s my address? Oh here it is. Right, fill out section B if you are married… C if blah blah blah. Telephone number, email address.. oh wow they even want your email these days.. social security number. Hmmm.

“Hey, what’s my social security number?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I have to fill this out and I need an SSN”

“What, you don’t have one?”

“Erm.. I don’t think so”

“Oh yeah, I guess you should go apply for one. Oh man, that sucks. Let’s see, okay I can download a form online and print it. You should go there early, there’ll probably be a lineup.”

Okay, fine. Let’s move some meetings around and spend tomorrow morning with some bureaucrats. The next day, I packed the forms and documents I needed and headed to the government offices.

“Empty your pockets” the security guard instructed me sternly. “Jacket on the tray. Bag too. No, on another tray. Is there a computer or any electronics in the bag?”. “Uh, yes, my laptop is in there, I’m going to work after th..”. “Remove it from the bag and put it on the tr.. not that tray, another tray. Okay walk through the screen please.”. It’s like being at an airport, I thought to myself as I gathered my things at the other end of the security check. I've never even seen the airport, I wonder what it's like.

After the security check I found myself in a large spacious building housing all sorts of governmental offices. I walked around a bit looking for the social security office, the place seemed quite empty apart from a small crowd of people at the corner of.. hang on.. oh. Great. As I got closer it turned out it wasn't so bad. “It’s still early” I thought to myself as I pressed buttons on the digital why-are-you-here-take-a-number-machine. I took a seat and waited. There were two sets of numbers on a big screen indicating who was next and signs in English and Spanish all over the waiting room. There were four windows and a bored woman on the other side of each one, a sense of helplessness filled the room. One of the clerks slurped a soda loudly through a straw right under a sign saying “NO FOOD OR DRINK”.

“540!” one of the bored women said loudly as the screen buzzed my number. I grabbed my bag and jacket and headed over to the counter. “What do you want?” the woman asked (so much for the machine). “I’m here for a social security number, I’ve just transferred here and I need one to complete my tax fo..” I trailed off as she held out her hand without saying a word. I gave her my SSN application form and my passport, a letter from my employer (hastily prepared the day before at work) and a copy of my birth certificate. She opened my passport on the picture page and folded the spine the other way. Then, she closed the passport to look at the front with a surprised expression on her face. She turned to her colleague in the next window who stopped serving #541 while he was in mid-sentence to look at my passport.

She leaned back towards me and leafed through the pages and stopped suddenly. “I’m afraid we have a problem here..” she says as my heart sank. “It says here you entered this country in December 2014. That’s almost a year from now.”. “That’s because I’m from the future” I said trying to lighten the mood. She frowned at my little joke and said I have to go to the airport to get it corrected. I gathered my papers and headed out.

The airport wasn't too far, I called work and explained I will not be making it before lunch. A couple of subway trains and a bus later I was at the airport. I had to go to the customs office, I found it after looking around for about half an hour. “...so you see I have to get this corrected or they won’t give me social security number…” I explained to the woman at the customs office. “But you didn't come through here…”. “No, I took the bus…”. “So what date did you arrive? December 2nd 2013?”. “No, they got the month wrong, not the year. I got here January 2nd”. As she walked away with my passport I realised I could have said any date I wanted. I couldn't really think of a more useful date than the one I actually came in on anyway.

Corrected passport in hand, I left the airport and headed straight back to the government office. After a slightly different security check (power adapter also in a separate tray this time) I went straight back to the room. Now there were at least twice as many people and two of the windows had closed. Two hours later I completed my application and raced back to work just in time for my meeting. I was starving.

One day, one day soon, I will get my social security number. It will arrive in the mail and I can finally put all this red tape behind me. Or at least until the next time I have to battle with THE BUREAUCRACY…

In the future, THE BUREAUCRACY will have expanded to
 the point where it collapses onto itself and forms a singularity