This happened somewhere between 2015 and 2020. I worked for a somewhat small municipality. Our “town hall” is spread out over mostly two buildings right next door to one another. One of the departments in the other building processed U.S. Passport applications as one of its services.

On this day, we had just experienced a snowstorm, dropping around six to twelve inches of snow overnight. Our official snow policy was if school is delayed or canceled, employees may also use that same amount of time (up to two hours) without penalty to ensure they get to work safely.

Some employees like to use the whole allotted time (for various reasons: clearing driveways, young kids in school, needing to arrange care, living in smaller towns with poorly maintained roads, etc.), while others still try to get in on time while being safe on the roads, knowing they don’t have to rush. When this does happen, notices are sent out to all the local TV and radio stations of the delay.

Town Hall opens at 8:00 am. I don’t remember if school had a two-hour delay or was canceled, but about half the employees weren’t in right at 8:00 am. I, myself, arrived at around 8:15 am, needing extra time for clearing off my car and the area around it as well as driving 10-15 mph under the speed limit due to the icy and not fully-plowed roads.

As I walked into the building, I saw a resident who looked familiar, angrily complaining to my manager about something before storming off into the parking lot. Curious, I asked what had happened in the fifteen minutes the building had been open.

The resident had an upcoming international trip planned and needed to renew the passports for his whole family, so he showed up next door to that department at 8:00 am only to find the doors were locked because nobody was in at the time.

He stomped over to our building to see if anyone was in, since we were supposed to open at 8:00 am, so he was furious as to why nobody was in next door.

He found my manager, screamed at her for a bit while she stood there with a shocked expression, but quietly allowed him to rant uninterrupted. She explained that due to the storm, some employees were taking a little extra time to get into the offices safely, but they should all be in soon. She also reminded him that passport applications don’t begin until 9:00 am (this is posted on the website and on the door with the hours).

Unsatisfied, the resident demanded, “Don’t you know who I am?!” This is where it all clicked as to why he looked familiar; he was the owner of a chain of local car dealerships, famous for his breed-specific dogs in their commercials. Knowing this, my manager (typically not one to get flustered at angry customers) cheerfully answered, “Yes! You’re [Full Name]!”

Thrown off a bit, he then stormed off into the parking lot, which was when I passed him.

The passport department employees did show up within the hour and were able to process his family’s applications quickly. Surprisingly, he came back to our building to apologize for his behavior earlier, which my manager dismissed as unnecessary, but she thanked him. I had several interactions with him after that incident, and he was never anything but polite and personable those other times, so I chalked it up to travel and weather-related stress.

I told my mother what he had said to my manager (“Don’t you know who I am?!”). And now, years later, whenever his commercials come on and we’re in the same room, she always blurts out, “I know who he is!”

I recently lost my ID card, so I had to go to the town hall to request a new one.

I looked up the procedure on the official government website. It clearly reads: If your ID was stolen, you need to bring an official report of theft from the police; however, if you just lost it, you can go directly to town hall. 

So, knowing how inefficient and clueless our government apparatus is, I take a photo of the website as proof, make an online appointment, and write in the ‘Do you have remarks for the appointment’ checkbox: “I lost my ID, wasn’t stolen, don’t have a police report, need to request a new ID”.

A day later, they mail me, confirming my appointment.

I leave work earlier to be able to make the appointment (because service-oriented as the government is, of course, they’re only open during business hours, when every citizen is working). 

You can guess it; I arrive there, and the first thing the lady behind the desk asks is for my police report. I sigh, explain I don’t need it, and show her the photo.

Her response:

Employee: “Oh, the website must be wrong then.”

Me: “Miss, this is THE official government website. If not there, then WHERE can I get correct info?”

Employee: “Sorry, I can’t help you with that. You need the report.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll just walk into the police office next door and make a report.”

Employee: “Local police do not make reports; you’ll have to go to [Town forty minutes away].”

Me: “Is this some sort of joke? We live in the 21st century, where you can do ANYTHING online, but I need to ride my bike for forty minutes to another f****** town for this? Why the h*** do I even pay local taxes when I can’t even file a f****** police report where I live? How about old and disabled people? You make them undergo this odyssey as well? This is an outrage, and I will NOT go all the way to [Town] because the local bureaucracy is too incompetent to help their own citizens.”

Take a breath…

Me: “And let me be clear, I’m not angry with you, I’m angry with the system you represent. I’m not here to ruin your day by cursing and shouting, but the fact that I took a photo beforehand because I KNEW some s*** would happen, says it all about our government, doesn’t it”?

Employee: “I completely understand, sir. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? You could go to the police next door and ask them, but I cannot do anything else.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll do that. And once again, this wasn’t an attack on you personally. I’m just sick and tired of being sent on wild goose chases. But that’s not your fault. Have a nice day.”

I walk to the police station only to find the door locked and a big sign: “APPOINTMENTS ONLY! NO WALK-INS”.

I go back to the town hall clerk:

Me: “And now I AM p***ed at you because YOU PERSONALLY sent me on a wild goose chase, knowing very well that the police won’t let me in. I take back what I said and wish you a terrible day. And just so you know, I’m NOT going to [Town]. My ID expires in two years, and I’ll get an invitation then to pick up a new one, in this town, anyway. And by the way, why the h*** do you even have the textbox when I make an appointment if you’re clearly not going to read it? You could have called me and saved me a f****** trip and unpaid time off!”

Employee: “Sir, you are not allowed to just not have an ID card. It’s obligatory.”

Me: “Yeah, well, some say you’re obligated to eat fish on a Friday, but guess who’s going to barbecue tonight, lady? I hope you receive the same level of competence you provide whenever you need anything in the future. You’d be on my side before you can say ‘standard procedure’.”

So, I guess I’ll have to make do with my passport for the next few years.

I HATE bureaucracy.

CORRECTION: A typo and an uncensored swear word have been corrected.

For whatever reason, my trash service has not been coming by to collect. I have called and called and been reassured each time that they would get it next week. After a month, I gave up and took matters into my own hands. I had an old barrel in my backyard that hadn’t been used for a long time. I dumped some burnable garbage in the barrel and set it on fire. 

About ten minutes later, two local police officers came to the yard.

Officer #1: “Ma’am?”

Me: “Oh! Hello.”

Officer #1: “Ma’am, are you burning something?”

Me: *Standing a few feet from the barrel.* “Yes.”

Officer #2: “We received a report of a house fire in the area.”

Me: “Um… I don’t think so.”

Officer #2: “And how do you plan to control this burn?”

Me: “There is no foliage above the barrel, it’s in the middle of an 8x8ft cement slab, I have three buckets of water and a hose here, and I’m burning little by little, so the flames do not go above the lip of the barrel.”

Pause.

Officer #1: “Why aren’t you putting your garbage out in your bins?”

Me: “I pay for collection, but they haven’t collected in a month. I keep getting told they’ll be here every week, but they’re not. I can’t let garbage pile up, that’s unsanitary.”

Officer #2: “You could take it to the dump.”

Me: “Which is extra money I shouldn’t have to spend since I’m already paying for a service I’m not receiving.”

Officer #2: “Who is your collection company?”

Me: “[Company Name].”

They exchange a look.

Officer #2: “Thank you. Please just… continue to be careful.”

I continued my burn until it was done, then completely soaked what was left. The next week, my trash was finally collected! I may never know what changed but I have a feeling the officers who visited me also visited the collection company.

I work for a weather service where people can call in for a variety of reasons. One of our regular callers has been dubbed ‘Satellite Sam’ because… well, you’ll see.

Coworker: *Calling me on an internal line.* “Hey, are you training [New Guy]?”

Me: “I am, I’m sitting with him on a call right now.”

Coworker: “I got the short straw and got Satellite Sam today. Want to haze the new guy?”

Me: “I guess he needs to know sooner or later.”

[Coworker] sends Satellite Sam over, and he’s on hold with my trainee. Once our current call is finished, I pause the next call (who would be Satellite Sam) and start explaining.

Me: “Okay, so your next call has been transferred by a coworker and is currently on hold. He’s one of our regulars. I’d like you to listen in while I take this call.”

Trainee: “Sure!”

I take over and introduce myself with the usual “I’m a manager” spiel.

Satellite Sam: “DEI is killing white people!”

Starting off strong today!

Me: “I see, sir. And why are you calling the weather service for this… concern?”

Satellite Sam: “The government controls the weather with all them satellites, and the government has been infected with DEI! Now they’re throwing hurricanes at rich White families so that the wealth will shift to all the Black people and they can catch up!”

Me: “So you admit that there’s a hurricane-sized wealth imbalance between Black and White people in this country?”

Satellite Sam: “…” *Click.*

Trainee: *Wide-eyed.* “What was that?!”

Me: “That was Satellite Sam. He calls in every day with a new conspiracy about how the government has satellites that control the weather. He’ll see a political news story tomorrow, associate that with a new conspiracy involving the weather somehow, and then call us to tell us about it.”

Trainee: “Why hasn’t he been… I don’t know… blocked or something?”

Me: “And miss out on the daily fun? Why would we want that? We even have a monthly bingo board for him in the break room, although I don’t think DEI is on there… yet.”

I was in the process of moving abroad and emptying the house I was living in. I had hired a moving company to do the boxing and loading, and they told me the day and time they would come with the truck. I needed to secure two parking spots near the entrance of the building to ease the whole process.

Where I lived, it was common practice to reserve a parking spot just by putting some obstacle into it (a chair, a garbage bin, whatever) or just by asking around who had parked their car to move it. Since the ground floor of the building had an insurance office, a hairdresser, and a baby shop, I didn’t want to take any chances with pursuing the tradition and decided to go the official way: I went to the local police and asked them to fence two parking spots at my address on the moving day. I didn’t know what I was getting into…

The police office where I went first told me I needed to file my request to the municipality tax office, located somewhere else, and that they would have sent the information to them.

So I went to the tax office; there, the person in charge told me that I could file the request with them, but the payment of the tax due for occupying the public ground had to be paid at the appointed tax agency, located somewhere else.

There I went. Rather than something resembling a front office, I found a naked garage with, at the end of it, a single desk, with a computer on it, and behind it a young man.

I explained to him my situation, and he asked me when I needed the fencing, because for the last few months the rates had been under discussion for approval, and maybe the coming week he could call me and let me know, at the moment he didn’t know how much I would need to pay.

Already fed up with all the bouncing among offices scattered in the town and feeling dumb for chasing them to get to pay a tax, I told him that my move was taking place in three days, that if I had not paid before the move, I would not bother to pay at all, so please figure out a way.

The next day, I got a call from the municipality office, telling me that my request had made quite some noise in the offices of the powers that be and that they had decided the rates and, therefore, also the amount I needed to pay.

I think the locals still tell the story of the man who went after the tax office to pay his tax; it must be the local version of human bites dog.