Your Employment Is History

(I am renewing my daughter’s passport. My daughter used to be a cashier for a well-known American chain of stores that had famously opened with much fanfare in Canada, and just as famously closed two years later after failing spectacularly.)

Employee: “I’ll need your daughter’s employment history for the last two years.”

Me: “Well, she used to work for [Store], but — heh, heh — it’s closed now, of course.”

Employee: *dead-eyed stare* “I still need the store’s address and phone number.”

Me: “Um, I have no idea what the address or phone number would be, and I can’t look it up, because they’re closed.”

Employee: “Look, you need to put SOMETHING there.”

Me: “…”

(I was able to remember the address, and my daughter still had the phone number saved on her phone, so I gave them the information they wanted. I still don’t know what they expected to do with it. I would have done just as well to make something up.)