Date with the State

I'm sorry, but the title of this entry suggests that it's more interesting than it really is.

In a few short months, I will be a "well-educated" person with "higher learning". Not so well educated that I would know what I want to do with the rest of my life or even have a degree that would help me toward achieving that goal, but educated nonetheless.

So naively, I believed that with my education and mastery over the English language, and aided by extensive experience in dealing with automated voice systems, wrangling with phone companies, and being in on-hold limbo, that I would be well-equipped to deal with the United States government. It's not like I had done anything wrong or was making a difficult request. I had all the information they were going to ask me and a simple question: why hadn't my mother received her interview notice yet when the rest of us had?

It took ten minutes of navigating through the menu just to find the magical menu button that would lead to talking to a real-live person (they're precious commodities nowadays, everyone's looking for them in their phone calls). After another ten minutes of waiting (much better than the fifty minutes they subjected me to last time), I finally got a live one. A very nice lady that told me that she couldn't answer my questions, because she doesn't handle naturalizations.

"But I followed the menu that said-"
"I know."
"Then why can't you-"
"I'm sorry, but I don't handle this."
"Could you transfer me to someone that can?"
"No."

What she could do, however, was to send me back to the main maze of a menu and tell me exactly what to press- 2 (wait for the menu), 2 (wait for the menu), 6,- now do NOT enter your case number- 2 (wait for the menu), then finally, 4.

Of course! Do not enter my case number when they ask for it. It makes perfect sense that following the directions led me to be transferred to the wrong line. And yet, even after these 'explicit' directions, I still struggled with the phone menu, listening to the same options over and over again and hitting all the wrong keys. It took another five minutes for me to be put on hold again.

At long last- a polite, kind, and most wonderful of all, a live voice. Who told me that I couldn't get an answer until it's been more than 180 days (we're only at 113) since the documents have been filed. So even though Brother and I have gotten our notices already, Mother has to wait for another two and a half months before she can start figuring out if it got lost in the mail or if there's anything wrong with her case. I can't even imagine what the experience would have been had I not been able to understand English as well, did not have 45-minutes to devote to being on the phone, or had a genuine crisis that needed to be addressed.

BSketch: Would you say the process is frustrating? Humiliating? Eye-opening?
Moi: It's all those things.

The state of our Union is strong. God bless America.