Scene 1:
Texans sometimes get cocky when they consider the big-government shenanigans of their cousins in New Jersey and Illinois. And then they remember that Houston is in Texas.
From the KHOU local television news (via the great Michael Berry Show) comes the news that officials in the nation’s fourth-largest city auctioned off a load of surplus office furniture, including filing cabinets — with files still in them. The buyer alerted city officials to the situation, and the answer was exactly what you’d expect: You bought those filing cabinets, whatever’s in them is your problem now, pal.
What was in them was payroll records, with sensitive information (including Social Security numbers) for more than 800 municipal employees. The information was on portable storage drives with no password protection, because the city cares so much about the security of sensitive information. As Berry pointed out, the first thing the city did was put out a press release insisting that “we take employee privacy very seriously,” when it manifestly does not.
Reporters at KHOU made six requests for comment from the office of Mayor Sylvester Turner, who stonewalled them and tried to brazen it out.
Scene 2:
I was listening to Berry’s show in my car on the way to the federal building in Houston, where I had an appointment. I have a passport that will expire in a few months, and I do not want to wait to the last minute to get it renewed. I called the information number, made an appointment, and assembled all of the things (old passport, new passport photo, payment) that the robot voice on the phone told me I needed.
My appointment is for 10:30 a.m. I arrive at 9:45 a.m. I am no fool. That leaves me plenty of time to fill out whatever forms still need filling out and time for enduring whatever bureaucratic snafus must be endured. After partially disrobing for the surly old security guards who ensure that the people’s properties all resemble prisons as closely as possible, I see that there is, of course, a line out the door. I feel smug for exactly two seconds — these chumps should have made appointments! — until I realize that this is the line to check in for my appointment. This takes more than an hour and involves interviews with two separate bureaucrats. But of course one cannot express annoyance in these situations — one surly bureaucrat gets in a snit and it’s all for naught.
Unless you have friends. An extraordinarily tall woman (she must have been nearly six-and-a-half feet tall) comes in, leading an elderly woman wearing a turban like Auntie Mame. She is greeted as an old friend by one and all, and the security guard lifts the get-in-line rope off of its stanchion, ushering the two through to the window. No lines for them.
At the first window — the one where I’m checking in for my appointment — I produce various forms and photos and ID and a credit card. I explain that I am late for my appointment, that I (ahem) hadn’t expected it to take quite so long to check in. His answer was part Kafka, part Office Space:
“The machine.”
“The machine?”
“The machine.”
“Ah, the machine. It’s broken?”
“It was broken. We’ve never caught up.”
I want to ask how long ago it was that this cataclysmic event occurred, but I am afraid that he will answer, “Seven years,” and I’ll start laughing hysterically and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” and end up in some Homeland Security oubliette.
My papers are in order. I go to sit until my number has been called, wondering what the point of making an appointment was.
The next fellow goes over my papers and copies, by hand, much of the information I put on the form, also by hand. (In a sane world, this would be accomplished with a single thumbprint.) We do our business, and I wait until the little sign on the credit-card reader says “Approved.” But we aren’t done.
“There’s a problem.”
“What problem?”
“The machine.”
The Machine (it feels like it should be capitalized by this point) has been naughty. It was supposed to charge my Visa two-hundred-odd bucks for the purpose of providing me, a free man living in a self-governing republic, a little book that gives me official permission to come and go from my own country. But instead, it gave me $215. You know what happens when government gives you money that it didn’t mean to give you. (The IRS sometimes sends out erroneous refunds; you’d be sore tempted to cash that check with the extra zero on it, but you’ll regret it.) The Machine has a mind of its own, but even the Machine cannot overrule the Lord God Revenue.
The man behind the window has me raise my right hand to take an oath. Before I do so, I move a ring from my left hand to my right and turn it around so that the inscription — “F*** You” — faces the bureaucrat.
I’ll let you know if I ever actually get that passport.
Scene 3:
I am at JFK airport in New York City, returning from London. There is a genuine celebrity on my flight, a very recognizable one. It takes more than two hours to get through immigration. Every two minutes, someone stops the television star for an autograph or a picture, and he obliges, never showing any fatigue or annoyance. He seems happy to be doing what he does, as he should.
The fellow at the desk, however, is plenty snarly. I don’t help.
“Have you brought any food items or agricultural products?”
“I had, but they expired while I was standing here in line.”
Scene 4:
A DMV office. Write your own story.
A few days ago, I wrote a piece in which I argued (and it is true) that the idea of “running government like a business” is folly. But that does not mean it cannot be run better. Our travel infrastructure, physical and bureaucratic, is a shambles. From our horrifying airports to the incompetent airport authorities that run them to the domestic operations of the State Department to the immigration counter, Americans endure inefficiencies and stupidities not suited to a country that presents itself as the world’s economic superpower. It is a real economic disadvantage, as well, as anyone who has ever had the opportunity to compare, say, Schiphol with LaGuardia knows.
The current Undersecretary of State for Management is Patrick F. Kennedy, in which role he is the man responsible for making the state department “more citizen-centered, effective, and efficient.”
This is America, and we do not have a tradition of seppuku. That’s a shame. He and the mayor of Houston and a few others could at least end their careers honorably.