darkotter35 said:So, what I witnessed today was straight-up Kafkaesque—and I mean top-tier, surrealist nightmare fuel kind of Kafkaesque.
Basically, my local town hall in a small suburb outside of Chicago is handing out ID cards to citizens who don't have digital logins or even an email address, which means you actually have to physically show up at the municipal building.
After hearing rumors yesterday that they were just handing these things out left, right, and center, I decided to head down there and see if I could snag one too.
To make matters even more ridiculous, when I tried to go through the official, legitimate channels using the online portal and employer verification, they refused to issue my card—even though I still have my old one—simply because I’m not currently working a full-time gig.
So, I roll up to the office and there’s already a line of about 20 people.
I join the queue and notice everyone is filling out these little slips of paper. I ask this guy next to me what the deal is, and he tells me, "Hey, let me just fill yours out for you while we wait." So, I give him my info, and the only real question on the form is the "reason for request." I write down "agricultural work" because that’s what I heard everyone was using yesterday to get approved—plus, I’ve got a house out in the country and a garden, so it’s technically a legitimate reason. I ask him if I need to specify where my house is or anything like that, and he just goes, "Nah, don't bother." I asked, "How are they even going to know I'm not making stuff up?" He looks at me and says, "They won't. You can write whatever you want." I was floored. I figured, okay, surely once you go inside, they’ll check your driver's license or something? He just laughs and says, "Nope, they don't check anything. You just drop the paper into a box." I stopped dead. Are you telling me twenty of us are standing here in line just to drop a piece of paper into a freaking box?! He says, "Yep." Suddenly, some guy at the front of the line starts losing his mind, yelling, "Goddammit, you idiots! This bureaucratic harassment is absolute bullshit!" Then someone walks out of the town hall and asks, "What the hell are we waiting in line for just to toss a paper in a box?" And then, out of nowhere, everything speeds up. Within five minutes, I’m at the front, I walk inside, and I drop my paper in the box. The guy tells me we should have the IDs within 48 hours. I asked where we pick them up, and he says, "They just leave them in a box outside, and you come by to grab the envelope with your name on it."
I’m like, hold on... so there’s nobody actually working this? You just grab it? He says, "Yeah." I asked, "Wait, so anyone could just walk up and take someone else's ID?" And he just shrugs and says, "Sure could."
To wrap this circus up: anyone can write whatever nonsense they want to get an ID, and literally anyone can walk up and pick up anyone else's ID.
We had a line of 20 people formed just so we could shuffle into the building one by one to drop paper into a box without a single shred of verification. A box that could have been sitting outside the whole time, and we could have all just tossed our papers in without any line at all.
While we were waiting, everyone in line was chatting away, sharing pens... honestly, the only thing we didn't do was crack open a beer together.
America... the land of complete and utter idiots.
I mean, out of all those idiots standing outside the courthouse, why wasn't there even one smart person to say, "Hey, stop sharing the pen" and suggest we keep two meters of distance?
Aside from that, I really don't think these permits make sense in such high volume. If anything, they’re doing more harm than good, based on what I just saw.
And I don't get why some people are complaining about folks showing up to the store without gloves or masks. It's because you people—the ones who actually have them—bought up all the supply.
Besides, you go into the store, sanitize your hands, put on disposable gloves, and then you've got these geniuses walking around with their dirty hands, roaming the aisles and touching everything.