A significant number of nerve-wracking administrative processes are actually not if you find a human being inside the system to help you. Once you get your hands on such an advocate, you find that hard deadlines are no longer hard, required supervisory signatures are not really required, and in some cases that the form you’re worried about can be skipped, or doesn’t apply to you.
The public-facing rules set forth by bureaucracies are often designed to be massively conservative. (They really need fourteen weeks to process this form before I can submit the second form?) Find a person inside the system. My preferred method is to go to their office in person, at which point you become a person in their mind and no longer a number.
My preferred method is to go to their office in person
I’ve recently found this useful when dealing with the IRS. Time spent to reject a form on unspecified technicalities: four months. Time spent to get human being on the phone: unknown (disconnected repeatedly with “no, we’re too busy to take your call right now, or ever.”) Time spent in a physical office to get what I needed: maybe an hour or two.
Granted it was an extraordinarily unpleasant hour or two, but it got the job done.
A significant number of nerve-wracking administrative processes are actually not if you find a human being inside the system to help you. Once you get your hands on such an advocate, you find that hard deadlines are no longer hard, required supervisory signatures are not really required, and in some cases that the form you’re worried about can be skipped, or doesn’t apply to you.
The public-facing rules set forth by bureaucracies are often designed to be massively conservative. (They really need fourteen weeks to process this form before I can submit the second form?) Find a person inside the system. My preferred method is to go to their office in person, at which point you become a person in their mind and no longer a number.
I’ve recently found this useful when dealing with the IRS. Time spent to reject a form on unspecified technicalities: four months. Time spent to get human being on the phone: unknown (disconnected repeatedly with “no, we’re too busy to take your call right now, or ever.”) Time spent in a physical office to get what I needed: maybe an hour or two.
Granted it was an extraordinarily unpleasant hour or two, but it got the job done.