ASNN

passports are hard to come by

My family and I have a trip to Puerto Vallarta planned in just a few days, leaving on July 27. We noted on the travel.state.gov site that air travel to Mexico temporarily doesn't require a passport, only proof that we have applied for same. We also noted that it is currently taking 7–10 days from the time of application for proof to show up in the system that the application is in process.

With all of this in mind, we applied for our passports at our local post office on July 7. We sent the two renewals (Vanessa's and mine) and two first-time applications (the kids') via USPS Priority with all of the appropriate contents. And then, the waiting game began.

The travel.state.gov website has a tool one can use, when it's actually working, to check the status of one's passport application. It is the printed copy of that status page that allows one to travel to Mexico via air without a physical passport. I would check the status page for all four of us every morning and every evening. Eventually, Vanessa and the kids showed up in the system... but I never did. I thought about calling the emergency appointment hotline, but the website said not to unless I were traveling within 48–72 hours.

By the time last Friday (July 20) rolled around, I wasn't interested in counting the number of hours until my flight departed to Puerto Vallarta without me. I had less than a week to get in the system, and a healthy dose of skepticism that the passport agency HADN'T just lost all of my information. I called the hotline to make an appointment... but the system was too busy to take my call. The automated system was too busy, not that they didn't have enough operators or whatever. I envisioned a computer smoking somewhere, heavy-laden with the hundreds of thousands of calls it must be trying to handle.

By yesterday (July 23), I was in full panic mode. I had sent a half-dozen emails from the website asking for status; not one had been answered, much less acknowledged. The appointment line was unusable, always too busy to accept applications. The mouth-breather on the other end of the status phone number simply read the website results to me and sent off an email inquiring about my status, much as I had been doing a handful of times daily for a week. All of a sudden, I was seeing (timely!) articles on CNN about how the Department of State has screwed up so many honeymoon plans, vacations, etc. by turning a six-week passport application process into a three-month nightmare.

Sick with worry, I spilled my guts to friends and coworkers. Ron had a great idea that had worked for a couple of friends: why don't I contact my representative and see what they could do? The thought hadn't even occurred to me, largely because I see politicians as the source of all governmental problems, not their solution. But I called Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R, CA 22nd District) at his Bakersfield office and spoke to Whitney. She assured me that they deal with passport issues "on a daily basis". She took my information and told me that they would take it from there.

Today, I finally got through to the emergency appointment line. (I was still skeptical that my congressman would give a rat's behind about my problem, and wanted to set up an appointment as a contingency plan, if nothing else.) I finally found the ONE appointment that was available between now and Friday... at which point, Verizon dropped my call. When I called back, the one appointment was gone.

I found that there's something beyond full panic mode. I don't know what to call it, but I was nearly in tears, frustrated at the thought of not being able to go on vacation with my family because of some idiotic, incompetent government office. I started looking at the possibility of driving to Puerto Vallarta, which would have made for a miserable time. I wanted to scream at someone, but no one at the passport office would answer their phone (probably wisely so).

And then, my angel of light called. Whitney just wanted to let me know that they had everything squared away with my passport, that it would be overnighted to me today and that I'd have it tomorrow. Just like that.

So what's the moral of the story? I could rail against the State Department for making it so freaking difficult to get a passport, or for implementing ridiculous policies without (apparently) analyzing their impact, or for putting absurd statements on their website (why should I wait until my travel date is 2–3 days out to make an appointment if it will take me that long to even get through, only to find out that the next appointment is a week or two away?!), or for having a wretched website that is somewhere between completely broken and ill-conceived (who has a contact form that doesn't acknowledge the sending of an email?!). I could recognize that we could have applied for our passports much earlier and (theoretically) avoided much of this mess. (Never mind that there's no guarantee we'd be in the system if we had applied a MONTH earlier.) I could lament the fact that, as always, in government, the squeaky wheel gets the grease; I complained to my congressman, and I got results.

But I'd rather focus on the good things. Ron, thank you for a great suggestion. Whitney, thank you for listening to my problem and resolving it so quickly and with such care. And Rep. McCarthy, you have my vote the next time you're on the ballot... that is, if I vote. :-P

Posted by pcg at July 24, 2007 9:09 AM