The spirit moves me. The spirit of bureaucracy moves me.
Vignette 1. Some weeks ago I became the president of my family's real estate holding corporation. I will spare you the bizarre details of this matter, but suffice it to say that when the corporation's officers changed, we had to get a new bank account to service our needs. That meant we had to get new cheques. We used the same bank as the previous officers, Chevy Chase Bank, transferred the money and all seemed well. But the bank sent the new cheques to the treasurer, my cousin Debbie, via UPS, and left them on her front porch during the middle of a Wednesday, while she was at work. The cheques disappeared, probably into the arms of opportunistic thieves trawling after the UPS truck. This is common. So I went into the bank and told them of the problem. The bank manager, Marsha Brogdon, put a restriction on the account until we could find out what happened. This was on August 11. The cheques never showed up, and meanwhile we needed to use the account to pay some federal and local taxes. So the bank put a hold on those cheques that were lost and ordered new ones printed. In the meantime, four temporary cheques were given to us to use for urgent purposes. I assumed, and was told, that the account would work, except for the cancelled range of cheques that had gone missing. We used the temporary cheques, three of them, one to pay our accountant for services rendered, one to pay the IRS and one to pay the District of Columbia government.
A little while later, the accountant called me to say his cheque had bounced, and he got tagged for a $35 fee. So I went to the bank to find out what the hell was going on. The assistant manager, Barry Robinson, looked at the account on-line and said nothing was wrong. He showed me that all three cheques had been paid and the money removed from the account. This was on August 31. So I told the accountant that something must be wrong on his end. That was not so. Then the IRS cheque came back, having bounced. I asked my cousin to call the bank, and she was told the cheques bounced because there was a restriction on the account. Incredulous, I called the bank. Neither Ms. Brogdon nor Mr. Robinson was there. I left a message to have someone call back before 5 pm (this was around 12:30). I got no call. The next morning I went into the bank; again, neither Ms. Brogdon nor Mr. Robinson was there. I left a message to call. Mr. Robinson finally did, and when he did I let him know in no uncertain terms how irritated and disappointed I was. It seemed not to occur to him that if a hold was put on a missing range of cheques, there was no longer a need for a restriction on the whole account. We needed for the account to work; why else would we request and the bank give those temporary cheques? I also explained that the bank's stupidity had and would cost us money: the accountant's bounce charge, probably the IRS and the DC government's bounce charges, and probably late fees from them as well. I told him the corporation would not be responsible for those fees because it was Chevy Chase's stupidity that caused them. I explained that if he did not see things my way, I would close the account and take it elsewhere. He saw things my way.
This whole stupid thing took up hours of my time, however. I hate clerical incompetence. The routine mismanagement of ordinary tasks is a mark of the Third World (along with massive deferred maintenance and the systematic evasion of personal responsibility for anything), not this world. What does that really mean? Is America becoming more like the Third World, while the Third World itself is becoming something else? I have no idea.
Vignette 2. In mid-August we refinanced our mortgage to take out money to pay off a dangerous and unstable mountain of college loan debt. I wrote a cheque for $68K and change, and send it to a Plus-Loan DoED address in Atlanta with a plain-as-day note saying, in effect, "Hey, look, I paid this off in full before the deadline for this payout amount to expire, August 31, so do not--repeat, do NOT--take $939 and change from my account electronically as of Sept. 7."
They took it out anyway. I called to scream at them, of course. A guy named Leroy looked it all up, admitted I was paid off, and said the money would be returned to me. Then the conversation went like this.
Me: "When and how?"
Leroy in Atlanta: "Well, takes about 60-80 days."
Me: "What? !?! An electronic credit takes 60-80 days? Why?"
Leroy: "It's not done that way. DoED does not return your money, the Treasury does, and they do it by cutting a cheque."
Me: "Why? Why does DoED involve another Executive Branch department in a simple transaction?"
Leroy: "I have no idea."
Me: "Seems sort of crazy, doesn't it?"
Leroy: "Well......I suppose...er"
Me: "Leroy, why is it that with all the fancy computers and telecommunications technology we have, it now takes much, much longer to complete a simple clerical operation than it did even before the invention of an IBM Selectric typewriter?"
Leroy: "I have no idea."
Me:"Say Leroy, how much interest is the Treasury going to pay me for the privilege of holding my money for so long?"
Leroy: "They won't pay you any interest."
Me: "Leroy, if I have to pay interest when I hold the government's money in loan, why doesn't the government pay me interest when they hold my money?"
Leroy: "I have no idea."
Me: "Do you think that's fair?"
Leroy: "I have no idea."
Me: "Leroy, do you have any ideas?"
Leroy: "Not between 9 and 5 I don't, no sir."
Me: "Have a nice life, Leroy."
Leroy: " You betcha."
Vignette 3. I take the 37 Ride-On rush-hour bus to the Metro in the cold, dark weather and when it rains. Yesterday morning the bus was 15-20 minutes late in a light rain, way off schedule. This morning, something much stranger happened. Instead of moving in a little clockwise loop in our part of the route, as the bus has done every weekday morning for the past ten years, not one but two busses came round in a counterclockwise direction. A woman who got off the bus on the other side of the road mumbled something about locos driving d'buuus, and said she thought the schedule had changed. Well, we knew vaguely that the schedule would change September 6, not so much the times as where the bus would go after the Grosvenor Metro, for the 37 route had been partly merged with another (this is amazingly complicated for a simple thing). Finally a bus came headed in the right direction. I asked the driver if the schedule had changed.
He said, "I have no idea. I'm not the regular driver on this route."
I said: "Well, OK, what's your schedule today. When are you, were you, supposed to be at this stop?
He said: "I have no idea. You need to ask the county about that."
I said: "You mean you're just driving the route and have no idea when you're supposed to be where?"
He said: "Please just have a seat, sir."
When I got to work I called Ride-On. They knew nothing about any of this. The schedule had not changed. So why has the bus been way off the last two days, and why are buses headed in the wrong direction around the loop, and why don't your drivers even pretend to care about their passengers?"
And she said: "I have no idea."
