A slip of the hand. 8/26/2006
I managed to get my passport sorted out yesterday. My number was called, I walked up to the counter. I exchanged pleasantries with the officer behind the counter, and he handed me my new passport.
He told me to sign here, here, here and here. I was about to put my signature in the new passport, when a kid, about 6 years old, ran up to counter, jostled my elbow, grabbed his water bottle which he had left on my counter, and ran off. I muttered a “Hey”, and thought no more of it. Until I looked down, and saw that my signature now looked like something Andy Warhol might have drawn. There was a thick black line crossing the entire width of the page.
I cursed, and showed the page to the officer. He gasped, and muttered an apology. I asked him what we could do about it. He said he could give me a new passport for Monday. I said that wouldn’t be any good, because my flight was at 0900 Monday morning. He was really apologetic, since he knew it wasn’t my fault. He consulted his senior officer, showing him my now defaced passport, and the officer come over to me.
He asked if I could wait an hour or so, and they would give me a new passport. Since I didn’t have any choice, I agreed, and went off to find someplace to have coffee. I was fuming inside at the bad manners of this kid, who rushed off without even an apology, and no thought about what he had done wrong. There are times when I really feel that parents should be held accountable for their kids. They had never taught this kid not to interrupt adults, or queue up to wait his turn. All he knew what that he had to get what he wanted, and who gives a fuck about anyone else. Which is fairly typical of the mindset of some people.
I finally got my passport a half hour later, being invited into the inner office to do so. I sat down, and again received an apology from the officer, even though it wasn’t the department’s fault in any way. It is nice to see professionalism making a come back into the civil service, even if it is just in a small way.