Bureaucracy

Sometimes dealing with the government borders on the ridiculous. Yesterday I needed to make two phone calls during my “office hours”. First was the Massachusetts Board of Landscape Architects which is run by a state licensing board. I had a simple question and supposed it wouldn’t take long. Of course, first I had to listen to the million of options to choose from and when I finally got a person on the line, I began very politely to give my name and stated I had a question about a landscape architect’s license.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” was the lady’s response. “Just a minute!”

And then I heard elevator music. I almost took my phone away from my ear to stare at it. But then I remembered I was calling the state of Massachusetts. No one is friendly there. I guess I should have been grateful she didn’t just hang up on me.

Following that phone call, I had to call PennDot. We submitted a monster of an application for a Disadvantaged Business Certificate with them the last week of September and had not heard from them since a polite letter the beginning of November. We just wanted to know the application’s status and how long we had to wait for further information. So, I had the letter up on my laptop and called the first number listed. Got a busy signal. So, I worked on something else. Called again. Got a busy signal. Tried calling the 888 number. Got a busy signal. Worked on something else for a half hour or so. Tried again. Both numbers. Both busy. So, instead of calling through my office phone app, I simply called from my cell phone. And did not get a busy signal. Instead, I got the phone lady politely telling (for both numbers) that they were no longer in service.

I knew the Commonwealth of PA was badly run, but to not give the Department of Transportation enough money to pay their phone bill? Wow. That’s worse than I thought…

The numbers I tried were the only numbers listed both in the letter and on the letterhead, as well as on their website. Thankfully, I recalled we had received a more informational letter, searched through my e-mail, found the name and number of the local certifier and called her. The news? Since our application had been put on her desk, two of her PennDot colleagues had quit. So, she had their share of applications, too. We probably wouldn’t hear from her for the next step of the process until February. And that’s probably if she didn’t quit. Because she really was too nice a lady to be working for PennDot. A government run entity that not only can’t afford to pay their phone bills, but I’m guessing hardly pays their employees either. Hence they quit.

No wonder Pennsylvania has some of the worse roads in the country…despite the highest gas tax outside of California.