Leaving Las Government

2005, November 8 - 5:44pm — afreytes

When it comes to dealing with the government of Puerto Rico no thing is easy... You would think, for example, that quitting and getting your liquidation would be a said = done thing. But NOOO! The bureaucrats have seeded every process. Yes, they can make the simple act of quitting into a soul-sucking experience.

In order to quit, I need four different documents from three different government agencies. Want liquidation too? Add three more documents, in triplicate, from a fourth government agency and another document, also in triplicate, from a quasi-government entity.

My first stop is Hacienda, I park the car and look around, but the office I remember visiting a few years back is gone... I blink, stupefied. I get back in the car visit another regional Hacienda office. There are no lines... Wow. In five minutes I get two of the required documents for the low low price of five bucks. Yes, you have to pay to quit working for the government.

Happy, I get back into town, somewhere in the back of my mind I feel the sciatica throbbing. ASUME is the next stop. I can't be any other ASUME but this town's ASUME. The benefit of the doubt tells me they must have distributed databases that can't be accessed from other towns, or even centrally. I go inside the office. There's no waiting line... Because the people just accumulate on whichever window they think the next public servant may appear... Dozens of people (mostly women and children) sit down on hard plastic chairs, their faces identical to those you would find in the cancer ward of any hospital... I assume that this must be a payday or something and leave... Perhaps I'll come in the afternoon, though I doubt the sciatica will let me do anything past noon.

Next the township's CRIM. There are no waiting lines. There is no one, in fact. I ask around and someone tells me the person who works there isn't working today. No one else can give me the document I need. I ask some more and they tell me to visit the regional office (and isn't this a regional office?)

I head for CRIM's regional office. There are no waiting lines. Only desperation lines. I have to wait in line to talk to someone whose job is, get this, to manage the lines! I talk to this person and he hands me a paper. I'm told to fill it while waiting for him to call me. I wait in the "wait-for-me-to-call-you" line, meanwhile I encounter cryptic demands from the piece of paper. I ask the line-manager if I need to know this strange number asked for on the paper. His response: "Maybe that you need it, maybe that you don't."

I'm not kidding... I hear the line-manager tell another person that he may wait, but his turn may not come up before 4:30pm, and they will cease work after 4:30...

I go back to the "wait-angrily-while-the pain-in-your-leg-increases" line and wait, and wait. He calls me and tells me to sit down: "Here", he says. I survive the second waiting line and I am now in the "sit-here-and-play-musical-chairs" line. Every time he calls someone in the first chair the people move up through the chairs, me included. Finally I reach the first chair. All the while the sciatica sending killer signals into my brain, I tremble like a junkie. The line-manager calls me at last. He checks my social security number into his computer... "You need this strange number you asked me about, or bring the house's deed with you."

What?!

You made me wait two hours and thirty minutes in order to tell me something that took you less than thirty seconds to check out?!? And I must come back?!??

I remain calm... I remember I have family to look after... Murder is destruction.