I registered the kids today for the 'give parents a break' program offering free childcare once a month for kids of deployed military. I thought it would be easy to stop by the Airman and Family Readines Center and get the referral paper and then register the kids at the Child Development Center (no and Em) and Youth Center (the older 4). It took over an hour to get one piece of paper filled out at the A&FSC because of confusion over who Ben is working for (I dunno, you're working for CE over there, is that your organization?). When I called the CDC the guy told me I HAD to have a LES to show income. It's a free program, no? Whatever, I went home and got online to print out the latest pay stub. By now it was time for Zac to be getting home so we drove down to wait for the bus. Since it was lunchtime I gave Zac and Em some candy to keep them happy long enough to get the forms filled out at the other two locations. (sellout mom!) (also wildly optimistic that some candy would last that long!)
At the CDC it took me quite a while to get the attention of any of the 3 people working in reception, and when I explained what I needed it took another 10 minutes to locate the forms I had to fill out. When I sat in the reception area to fill out my stacks of forms (10 pages to register the 2 little kids) the dude answering the phones told one of the other receptionists to put me in the isolation room. Wha? I'm diseased now? And why can't you talk directly to me, phone guy? Filling out the forms was the typical military forms experience, long and boring and repetitive. Did I mention repetitive? Every time I have to fill out stuff like this I have daydreams of how easy it could be if it was all just digitized. Although I'm sure it would jeopardize the job security of someone who has to create all these !@#$% forms. Ah, government agencies, thy name is the exact opposite of efficiency. Also, I did NOT need the LES, so I don't know why phone dude told me that. I don't like phone dude, can you tell?
Another hour later I drove over to the Youth Center to register the remaining 4 kids. I was worried since the bus would be coming in only an hour and a half and I had the majority of registering to go. Luckily the lady at the Youth Center was efficient, NICE, and didn't care that my kids were putting their fingerprints on her fish tank so we got done and out of there in less than 15 minutes. If I didn't write so slowly it would have been less.
Lesson: Nothing is ever free. It might not cost any money, but someone is sure as heck going to make you work for that 'free' thing. In this case, the price paid was in time running back and forth from 9:30 am to 1pm and filling out umpteen forms.
Don't tell phone dude I still have his pen.
there’s nothing wrong with kids that trying to reason with them won’t make worse
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2 comments:
Well dear, it sounds like you paid enough of a price on that one. I do work for CE, but I am not sure that was what they were looking for. Who knows? I don't like the phone guy either since I too hate the inefficiency. But who knows, maybe the universe was balanced out by the lady at the Youth Center.
This was a funny entry...good description. I haven't experienced military life, but I have experienced red tape and all of the folks that accompany it!
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