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May 24, 2007
Time to Vent a Little Personal Steam
Since this is my blog, I'm claiming author's privileges in blowing off a little steam now and then. So you can keep reading or wait for the next blog which will probably be on topic.
In early February, I confirmed that I was going to be able to go to Florence, Italy for a meeting. Since my wife is part Italian, and had never been there, we decided to make it our "once-in-10-year" vacation that we have done for the past four decades. We were going to to do Florence and Rome and a little side trip to Malta, because of the climate and because I had enjoyed myself so much there when I was in the Navy over 40 years ago.
We immediately applied for our passports, turning in our old, expired ones, and were told they were a little behind and it would be 4-6 weeks. This was on Feb. 6th. On April 27th, a little over six weeks, my wife received hers. Mine didn't come. I checked on line and found that my "locater" number was one (1) behind hers, so I figured it would be coming soon. Besides, the passport agency was not taking any calls or communications unless you were within 14 days of traveling, which for me, was over a month away. Tick-tock.
Soon I was looking at 14 days and still no passport, so I began calling. 30 minutes to an hour on hold (after being automatically hung up on about 20 times) I got through to a very nice woman who assured me they were working very hard to make sure everyone made their trips, that there were no real problems with my application (visions of having worked on the McGovern campaign in 1972 had danced through my head) and there really wasn't anything to worry about. She suggested I call back four days later.
Four days later, no passport, about and hour and a half to get through. Nice gentleman this time, apologizing that they were way behind, didn't know why mine hadn't been processed right after my wife's and couldn't really give me any more information. I broke the phone.
Three days later, 7 days away from travel, I called back again, 2 hours to get through, nice person, no further information and no answers to my question.
Tuesday, this week, 4 days from travel, called again, disconnected about 50 times before I finally got to the music on hold section that meant I was somewhere in the queue. This person was not friendly. I can only assume she had already talked to whole lot of people in my situation who were not nearly as nice as me. She said my application was in "New Hampshire". When I asked what that meant, she simply said it meant it was "being processed", So I asked the logical question - how is this processing different from the supposed processing of the prior three months? No answer and a hangup.
Now I know what "going postal" means. I hit the internet only to find thousands of links to forums and other sites posted by people in my situation. But, some good suggestions, the first of which was to call my congressman. Ouch - I've never voted for the guy and don't really like him very much, but since he's been drawing a a paycheck from my taxes, I figure its time for him to earn some of it. Wonder of wonders, his staff tells me they've added three full-time people just to handle passport issues and they'll give it their best shot. For the next two days, they keep me posted and tonight, 15 hours before the plane takes off, they give me a FedEx tracking number.
I'm a cautious bunny, so my hopes only go up a little bit. Tomorrow morning I'll drive to FedEx (I'm not waiting for them, the tracking site says it could be delivered up to 4 hours after my plane leaves - so I put it hold on it) and if you don't see any new updates to this blog for two weeks, you'll know I'm having a glass of wine in Florence.
This is a management issue, the same type of management, or more properly mis-management, issue as arose over Iraq and Katrina. When they changed the passport requirements, they knew that millions of people who hadn't needed a passport to visit Canada or Mexico were now going to need one. They said they hired people, but its obvious, that the few they hired were never going to be enough. They're working extended hours and weekends but not catching up. Also, the fact that my application wasn't processed right after my wife's indicates they have no system for the orderly processing of these important documents. It's more like they simply dump the daily mail-load in the middle of the floor and those that fall off get processed. Last, all of the "solutions" they give you - e-mails, phone calls - to find answers don't work. They really can't tell you anything, nor are they empowered to solve anything, so call, but don't get your hope's up.
For those of you who are in this process or are going to be, it's getting worse. The staff person in the Congressman's office said that as recent as last week, they used to be able to get them done in 12 hours, but mine took 48 before it got kicked out the door, and she was told it was going to slow down even more. Start talking to your congressman early.
Ciao! and I hope I mean it.
Posted by joewest at May 24, 2007 9:09 PM