Several years ago, when I was newly released from God's Blessed Marine Corps, I worked as a security guard Up North. The company I worked for had a contract to provide armed security at federal buildings, and that's what I did.
Soon after I was hired, before I started my climb Up The Ranks of security guards, I got called to fill in at the Immigration and Naturalization Service for a week since their normal guard was...I dunno, fishing or something.
Yes, this was shortly pre-9/11. INS is now called [pause for Google search] US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Whatever.
This was the setup. It was an office in a small building in an office park. This was where people in all stages of the immigration process came to get forms, file paperwork, follow up on paperwork, have interviews, etc etc.
It was Hell on Earth.
The office opened, I believe, at 0800. People would start lining up before 0700. People do not go the INS by themselves. They take their entire families. We had zillions of hispanic immigrants, of course. This particular metropolitan area also has zillions of Somali refugees. And many, many southeast Asians.
OK. So we're getting the scene set. By the time the doors opened, there were eight billion people there. The average group size was...four people. The instant the doors opened, they formed a pretty good line (it's worth noting that orderly lines are a western european concept. Truly. Apparently standing patiently in line with the assumption that the que will progress in an orderly manner requires a leap of faith most folks from the developing world can't quite make).
Do not think for a second you could get out of line to pee or go out and have a smoke or whatever. If the guy behind you wasn't feeling kind (and remember - random kindness toward strangers is also a phenomenon largely confined to the western world), you were headed to the back.
Most of the line was out in the hallway. Once you got through the big double door, it continued through one of those maze-type things. After the maze, you'd see an INS employee in an elevated cage who would hear your issue or take your form, then give you a number and direct you to a seating area.
My job was to occasionally stick my head out in the hall and make sure the masses were behaving. Also, I was encouraged to offer them forms to fill out. Once they got inside, I was to act disapproving and scold them if they spoke too loudly, because that annoyed the INS employees.
The INS employees. The singlest rudest group of fuckheads I ever encountered in government. I seriously questioned the morality of returning to my post after the first day, since I felt like I was participating in great wrongness.
OK. If you work at INS, you have to speak to the public. I'm familiar with the public, and they can be really really annoying, but if it's part of your job, you have to treat the public in a civil manner.
Also, if you work at INS, a lot of the public you have to speak with will not have the greatest command of the spoken english language. It's just the way it works. Actual immigrants (you know, adults?) frequently never gain mastery of the english language. Their children do, but it's asking a lot of a 40-year old guy from Senegal.
So the INS employees were rude. Very rude. And the part that rubbed me wrong was that they were gratuitously rude to people who didn't speak much english, and over whom they had much power.
Listen - that ain't right. If your life sucks, yell at your spouse or your dog. Or quit your job, change your name and open a bar on the beach in Mexico. Do not take out your frustrations on a defenseless group of people that it is your duty to serve.
Asswipes.
Picture this. There's a man and a woman and she's carrying a baby and they have a 12-year old boy with them. They wait in line for five hours (I'm not shitting you) to get to the window, where some fat cow sighs in irritation (because, you know, she's like a GS-7 making 40 grand a year to sit on her ass and hand out paper numbers and it's just so damn hard) and shouts "what do you want?"
The man is holding a letter, and he holds it out and says "Buenos dias," then looks at the boy, who says "yes ma'am. My father got this letter and it's telling him his greencard is about to expire and he sent in the extension paperwork and the money and he has this proof and they haven't sent him a new one and-"
Then the cow grabs the paperwork and peers at it.
"He hasn't got the new one?"
"No. And he sent the money and-"
"Have you moved?"
The boy translates, the father speaks, the boy answers the cow.
"Yes, we moved last-"
"Well, that's why. They won't forward green cards."
The boy and the father and the mother confer, then look at the cow.
"We did not know. How does my father get his new card? He sent the money and-"
"It doesn't matter. If you moved then they destroyed it. You'll have to send another application."
"But the money-"
"That's too bad. Fill out this form and send it again."
Now, I understand that this entire system is fucked beyond belief. The employees who deal with the public are only a small part of the total problem. People send off these forms, which they fill out with great trouble and care, along with checks and money orders, and hear nothing. For months. Sometimes for years. And if they go to an "information office," they get treated like shit. For trying to do the right thing.
That ain't right. Listen - the vast majority of the rest of the world is all jacked up. You put an immigrant from some shithole like Somalia or El Salvador into a line with rude government functionaries, he's scared shitless. I mean, we're talking about people from places where just about any government flunky can disappear you. And I mean the BIG "disappear." They're not going to argue, they're not going to raise hell. They're going to go home with a duplicate form and get the best english speaker in their little community to help fill it out, then they'll either send a check or a money order representing an assload of money. And they'll do it again and again.
INS got away with this rudeness and incompetance precisely because they were bullying people who are used to being bullied. I know lots of rude government employees, but I've never seen one approach that level with any American.
And we all know why. Americans will only stand for so much of that shit, no matter how downtrodden we are. While working the same job, I occasionally filled in at Social Security Administration offices. I've seen poor people, hookers and 80-year-old codgers stand up and demand to talk to someone in charge. I've also escorted a few of the out of the building (usually gently) for exersizing their God-given right as Americans to not take any shit off of government flunkies.
Working with INS was one of the very, very few times I've ever felt ashamed to be working for the U.S. Government.
Oh yes...I did have a tiny sense of revenge, though. See, Mr. Abby is an immigrant citizen. And he lost his naturalization certificate. I dunno - it was there, then we moved, and it wasn't. So he had to get a new one.
So he changed into civilian attire and went down to the INS office. He stood in the line for several hours. Then he got up to the information cage. And the cow spoke rudely. And somewhere after the part when he slapped his ID card down in front of her, identified himself and began giving an impromptu class on common courtesy, and before the part where he went over the counter and tore her head off, a supervisor materialized and offered assistance.
Good for Mr. Abby. But not so good for everyone else.
We have a serious damn problem with immigration in this country. If we can't handle the routine paperwork for people who are doing things the right way, we don't have a prayer of coming up with a solution. And if we cannot treat those people who are here lawfully with common human decency, I doubt we have the bureaucratic dedication to really fix any of it.
Customer service is a simple thing, but it's a huge thing.
