On Monday, August 28, a colleague at the Naval Postgraduate School emailed a number of us retirees to tell us some unfortunate news. It turned out that our retiree passes that let us get on the base where the Naval Postgraduate School is would be cancelled effective August 31. To get a new pass, we needed to fill out a form and provide paperwork.
It was really great of my colleague, Geraldo Ferrer, to get the word out. What wasn’t so great was that the Department of Defense had made this decision in February and didn’t bother to tell us retirees. So we found out with 4 days notice.
I need to get on the base for four reasons: (1) I give occasional guest lectures, (2) I attend occasional lectures, (3) I meet with former colleagues, and (4) I still occasionally take books out of the library. In each of these cases, I could get a colleague to come to the gate and escort me in, but that would get very old for the handful of colleagues whom I feel comfortable asking.
So I pulled down the form to fill out and noticed right away that because I’m a dual citizen, there was extra paperwork. One of the pieces of paper required was some kind of petition that somehow related to my having become a U.S. citizen. I had no idea what or where that was. So the next day I went to my safe deposit box in Carmel and got my required Certificate of Naturalization but could find no “petition.”
I wasn’t hopeful. The part of me that feels hopeless said, “They’re going to turn down my application because it’s missing this one item.” But my brain said, “Be an empiricist. Present all the papers, don’t even mention the one missing, and see if the person I meet with asks for it.”
By Wednesday morning, I had all the documents assembled. We had been told to make an appointment because there was only one person tasked to handle the new IDs and he might be swamped. So I called to make an appointment and the very pleasant man on the other end told me to come down because there was no one waiting. By the time I got there, there were two people in front of me. I had a nice conversation with one while the other was filing his paperwork. I waited only about 20 minutes total.
I went in with all my documents. The employee took the form I had filled out and eyeballed my other documents in about half a second. I already started to feel relief. He did a bunch of things, moving back and forth between his computer and a printer. Then he was done.
I thought I would have to wait until someone in the police office on campus looked at my docs and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had to be sent to the Pentagon. Why did I think that? Because of this language in the email:
But no. After my 8-minute wait in the office, the employee handed me my new ID. It was that simple.
I told him that I appreciated how pleasant he was on the phone and how easy he was to deal with.
He replied, “I try.” I answered, “You don’t just try. You succeed.”
Now I’m good for 3 more years.
I could have let my public choice theory of government, which often guides me well, tell me that there would be numerous screw-ups, that the one employee would feel overwhelmed and might have attitude, blah, blah, blah. But instead I was an empiricist. “Just try; be pleasant; don’t assume.” It worked.
READER COMMENTS
steve
Sep 2 2023 at 10:47am
Sounds like my experiences with DoD including the military. Kind of confusing rules so the people actually carrying them out had to figure out how to make it work. Sort of like being enlisted when a junior officer tells you how to do something that is stupid. So you do it the right way just “modifying” things a bit and when he comes back he says “good job” having no idea that you didnt do it the way he thought.
OT- I think our immigration rules regarding Canadians are especially egregious. Speak English, culture is largely the same, schools are good, hardly any terrorists. It’s just as hard if not harder to hire a Canadian as people from other countries who dont necessarily have comparable backgrounds. I have an excellent young doc from Canada who made a mistake on some form and they are now threatening to deport her. Seems to me like the kind of immigrant we should really want to keep.
Steve
David Henderson
Sep 2 2023 at 3:39pm
Thanks, Steve.
Excellent point in your first paragraph.
Also excellent point in your second paragraph, but I’m biased. One correction: there are probably over 1 million Canadians who speak French and don’t speak or know English.
vince
Sep 2 2023 at 1:55pm
The whole process might just be red tape, but I have two questions.
Is this a situation where it two government employees are doing what one should be doing?
What if someone tries to sneak in with fraudulent documents? It might not be a big deal in this situation, but it might in others.
David Henderson
Sep 2 2023 at 3:41pm
No. There was one government employee. The two people in line were, like me, retirees. The one government employee did his job.
Re your second point: the probability that someone will sneak in with fraudulent documents, given that we all had to file legitimate documents when we were first employed, is tiny.
Monte
Sep 2 2023 at 2:11pm
I’ve tried empiricism to no avail. All of the IRS agents, DMV employees, and SS representatives I’ve dealt with seem immune. Dots Okay the bureaucrat is a supervillain.
David Henderson
Sep 2 2023 at 3:41pm
Empiricism doesn’t guarantee a result.
Tom Larkin
Sep 5 2023 at 6:54pm
We recently moved from Texas to Washington which of course, meant getting new drivers licenses. I was dreading this whole thing and expecting a huge hassle and multiple visits to the licensing department. It was actually lovely. We had a very nice conversation with the clerk who was very helpful and figured out how to get the thing done even though we didn’t have exactly the right paperwork.
She also took the time and effort to adjust the camera to allow my wife to keep her hat on for the picture. Since my wife has a receding hairline that she is very sensitive about, this was a huge deal for her. The clerk did this without being asked (we assumed it was impossible). We had talked about her condition and her sensitivity, which tells you how pleasant and personable of a conversation it all was. I only knew there had been any extra work because I asked the clerk about the picture after she took it (being very surprised that Ann could wear her hat).
Anyway, a pleasant experience, if a bit long 🙂
john hare
Sep 2 2023 at 5:28pm
I must admit to serious annoyance with some of the rigmarole with immigration. My wife is from Mexico and we are working on getting her permanent residency. Part of the documents requested are of the physical disabilities I have and how she helps me with them. And the mental issues I have and how she helps with them. I probably have less aches and pains than most people my age (67 this month) especially the ones in construction. And while mental problems are hard to self diagnose, I seem to be holding it i the road reasonably well. So am I required to lie??
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