You may have already seen this letter that is being passed around in emails that purports to be an actual letter to the passport office.
An actual letter to the passport office
Dear Bureaucrats:
I’m in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a t.v. cable from them back in 1997, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date? For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my social security card, and it is on all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver’s license, on the last eight passports I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at electi on times. Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother’s name is Mary Anne, my father’s name is Robert and I’d be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!! !
I apologize; I’m just really pissed off this morning. Between you an’ me, I’ve had enough of this bullshit - just look at the incredible lack of common sense here! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my address!?! . What is going on? You must have a gang of Neanderthal ass holes working’ there! Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don’t want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for Christ sakes. I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach.
And would someone please tell me, why would you give a crap whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a c hicken or a g oat, believe you me, I’d sure as hell not want to tell anyone! Well, I have to go now, ’cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60.
And that brings up another point. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day?? Nooooo, that’d be too damn easy and maybe makes sense. You’d rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some ass hole to confirm that it’s really me on the picture - you know, the one where we’re not allowed to smile?! ( morons) Hey, you know why we can’t smile? We’re totally pissed off!
Signed - An Irate Citizen.
P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it’s me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 . I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the ying yang. However, I have to get someone ‘important’ to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN COMMUNIST CHINA!
Sincerely,
You Sure In The Hell Should Know Who.
I actually doubt this is a real letter but it has spread like wildfire on the Internet because it highlights the kind of frustrations that normal citizens have working with government bureaucracy. I have seen interactions like this in a whole new light after conversations with my wife. She is studying for a masters in public administration and one of the things that they studied was why bureaucracies were setup in the first place and what the advantages of them are. “What?” you say. “They have advantages?”
The idea is that a government bureaucracy is a solution to cronyism. You may get bad service when you go to the passport office or the DMV, but you get the same bad service as everyone else. You don’t have to know someone, or slip someone a bribe to get service. The bureaucracy, when it works as designed, is indifferent to you and who you are or who you know.
When a company provides bad service people will move their business over time to a competitor that provides better service. When you are frustrated with the line at the DMV or filling out your tax forms, people seldom decide that they will move to a different state or a different country where they might get better service. This lack of competition clearly removes some incentive for service and I think we all know that. We also see in industries with less competition where customers have fewer options we also tend to have poorer service. Think of your telephone company or cable provider.
But the situation is more complicated than that. When a company provides good service and steals business from their competition they get more business and therefore more money. When a government bureaucracy is more efficient at best it only gets more work. An agency that can figure out how to do more work with fewer people will probably get their budget slashed and will indeed end up with fewer people. It will not end up with more money coming in and fewer people as it might in a private sector company which could translate to higher profits or salaries or both.
So how do we change these fundamental rules? How would we provide incentives for government employees other than seniority. While getting older may be an accomplishment, it is should not be the only thing we value. If you have ideas… please take a number and wait in line 3 over there.
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