2 hours at the Social Security office

[coloradoporsche]

I spent 2 hours of my life at the Fort Collins Social Security Office yesterday. What an experience. I had to go there to get a Social Security number for my foreign-born adopted son. (Not that I think my son needs a SSN, but the IRS is insisting on it.)

As with all government agencies, the first thing I have to do at the social security office is take a number….and then wait…and wait…and wait. During the 1 hour-plus waiting time, I made a few observations:

1. It takes 2 cops to guard the office.
Apparently, it takes a private security guard (with a gun) and a city cop to guard this office. There are about 20 people sitting in chairs and a few clerks behind thick glass. Why it takes two armed guys to secure this room is beyond me.

2. Indeed, obese people are considered “disabled” by the Federal government.
I had heard about this but had never witnessed it first hand. A very large woman (I’m guessing in her late 30’s and pushing 300-400 lbs) and her loser husband spent at least 45 minutes harassing one of the clerks because they only got 2 out of 3 checks delivered this month. They were pretty upset and had to explain several times that they are a “disabled couple”, which of course means that money is taken out of my paycheck so they can buy pork rinds, or whatever you have to do to yourself to get that way.

3. It takes 2 guys to deliver the mail in a federal building.
I swear I am not making this one up. A uniformed mailman (OK, “postal carrier”) shows up with a cart of mail and hands some of it to the security guard. Another fellow (who I presume to be a federal employee because he is wearing the obligatory short sleeve button up shirt) follows the mailman around with a clipboard checking off that this particular batch of mail had been delivered. Since they are all federal employees, why can’t one guy handle this job??

Anyway, once called to the window, I spent he balance of the time explaining that my son is a US citizen, and does not need a passport to prove that he is a citizen. Once an adoption is final, foreign adopted kids are citizens. A birth certificate, and adoption decree are what’s needed to prove this (which it says on the brochure sitting right next to the f’ing window!).

It took 2 supervisors to figure out how to enter my son’s information into their system. They ended up using his Korean name (which is not his legal US name) and listing him as a resident alien (which, of course, he is not) in order to get the system to create the necessary form that goes to somewhere for “processing”. In 4 weeks, we may get a social security card with my son’s legal name on it but I’m not holding my breath.

Just so long as I never have to go back to that office…

[Overpaid Slacker]

I, too spent time in the SS office yesterday, but "only" about an hour, and only to get a replacement card (why I "need" this card is another whole story about a separate and even more untouchable bureaucracy -- academia).

I didn't suffer your tortures, but, had I been you, I would have asked one of the supervisors to put in writing, and sign, something saying that on X date at Y time, s/he classified your adopted son, a citizen, as a resident alien, in the SS computer system, purely for convenience b/c they could not otherwise create the form.

Hindsight 20/20 and all... but when this blows up 2 weeks, 3 years or a decade from now that your son is listed as a "resident alien" in the SS system, it will be HELL to get undone.

JP

[singpilot]

Social engineering at it's finest. Byproduct of the early 60's agenda.