Sisyphus and His Rock? Child's Play.

As a lawyer, I am generally undaunted by tasks that require a migraine-inducing attention to detail, an adherence to Byzantine procedural requirements, and several hundred truckloads worth of trees in paperwork.  Thus far, I have felt rather professionally suited to the process of adoption; I have astonished agency workers with my ability to turn around vast applications with piles of supporting documentation within 48 hours, to which I want to respond, you call that paperwork?  Please.  Clearly, I have a terrible disorder.  Or...I am -- perhaps! -- motivated to speed the process along as much as I can, since the sooner we can get our stuff done, the sooner I get to be reading Where the Wild Things Are at bedtime to an actual, you know, child. 

All was going smoothly -- clicking along ahead of schedule, even -- until we got to the fingerprinting part.  The part that requires one to interact with and -- gasp! -- rely upon other people.  People in the government.  People who apparently withhold vital pieces of information on purpose in their quest to torment the wretched masses. 

Last week, I called police headquarters to find out some basic information about getting fingerprinted and ordering a "good conduct letter" (which I am hoping will read something like, "To Whom It May Concern:  Lawyerish talks too much in class but is well-mannered and dresses neatly and has exemplary attendance").  The woman with whom I spoke (after being transferred several times, natch) told me that we would need to bring a money order for $15 along with the fingerprinting cards I already had.  I clarified that two people would need prints taken.  Oh, in that case, the money order should be $30.  It's fifteen apiece, you see.  I asked what their hours were.  She said that they would be open on Friday from 9 to 3. 

So, on Friday, my husband and I puttered through our morning routine with the leisurely pace of two people with the day off, and then meandered over to the bank and procured our $30 money order.  We hopped on the subway and were downtown within half an hour.  It was just after 1pm.  The area around police headquarters and the courts was deserted, and we sauntered over to the security booth without the hindrance of crowds or lines.  The cop at the metal detector asked why we were there.  Fingerprinting?  Oh.  They closed at 1:00. 

NO.  She said three!  She specifically said three o'clock!  But no.  They had closed early.  Day after Thanksgiving and all. 

Sigh.

Monday morning, we jaunted downtown again, money order and documents in hand once again.  (Randomly enough, we passed Cynthia Nixon on the street near the municipal building, looking rather harassed, possibly in the manner of someone who wants to get out of jury duty, but she was still cute and famous person-y.) 

We breezed through security and made our way to the fingerprinting/good conduct letter room.  There, we were greeted by a woman behind a counter who barked, "Money order?"  I produced the money order with a flourish.  She looked at it as though I had just handed her a used tampon.  "This is for thirty dollars.  You have two people.  It's $30 each," she droned in the slow, deliberate voice one uses with a simpleton.  I explained what I'd been told over the phone.  "Thirty each," she intoned again.  I reminded her for the third time that we needed both fingerprints and a good conduct letter, for two people.  "That's $62," she said without looking up again. 

I wondered if the price would continue to increase as long as I stood there.  As far as I could tell, she was just pulling numbers from her head at random.  I asked her in the politest, yet weariest, voice where I might get another money order close by.  She waved in a vague direction and said there were a lot of banks of Broadway, and there was a Duane Reade somewhere in Manhattan that also sold money orders.

We scooted outside and hustled across the plaza to the nearest bank.  I took a number and we waited for fifteen minutes, having DMV flashbacks as digital numbers appeared on a screen directed customers to available teller windows.  When our number came up, I was informed by the teller that I could not get a money order -- not even with cash -- without an account there. 

Both scowling, we strode a few blocks to a Duane Reade, which, as promised, advertised in the window that money orders were available there for a mere 69 cents.  We went in and joined a massive line for the single register that was open (quel surprise).  When we made it to the front, having aged years in the process, the cashier blankly told me that "the machine" was down. 

My husband was ready to bail at this point and start over afresh the next day, but I'd already sunk a fair amount time into this, we were already late for work, and I just refused to let this die since we were this close.  My husband thought he knew where a branch of our bank might be, and sure enough, there it was, a few blocks down Broadway.  We got the new money order and headed back to the police building. 

The security guys waved us through.  (They must see people come in and out multiple times every day, what with the frequent giving out of incorrect information and all.)  When we rolled up to the fingerprints counter again, I handed the woman the money order, two forms, and our fingerprinting cards.  Ta-da!  I smiled at her.  Possibly a little smugly. 

"Passports?" she asked. 

"Excuse me?" I responded, my smile vanishing.

"PASSPORTS," she said louder, as if I were so thick-skulled she had to shout to make the words vibrate into my brain. 

No.  No, we did not have our passports, because no one said a damn thing about passports until that very moment.  Without a word, I grabbed our paperwork and money order, stalked out of the room, threw my briefcase down on a bench, and burst into tears.

Later, after I'd calmed myself and gotten settled at my desk, my husband emailed me a link to the website describing the requirements for the good conduct letter.  Which, by the way, I had searched for last week and somehow could not find.  But even if I had found it, we would've ended up in the same predicament, at least vis-a-vis the money order, because (take a guess!) there is no mention of the additional $1 fee per person to have both fingerprints and a good conduct thingy done.  Because that might actually allow people to be fully informed as to what they need to complete this process, and the city would prefer for its citizens to spend their days shuffling between One Police Plaza, an interminable line at Duane Reade, and a fiendish bank that doesn't allow any actual banking to occur on the premises.  For all eternity.

This, my friends, is my version of hell. 

We're going back today, of course, and this time I'm bringing with me every vital record and identifying document I have in my possession.  I'm going to get a money order in every denomination from one to a hundred dollars.  Dammit, I will produce my own mother if I have to, and I'll have her attest to my having been born on American soil.  Because they will not beat me down, man!  I was made for this process and I am here to fight!

Comments

[Allison]

Have fun. The ridiculous-ness only gets better. Wait until you have to be fingerprinted again because your fingerprints have expired. Because, you know, they change quite often.
But, hugs to you because I have been where you are and it SUCKS.
And I am also lame, because I have been refreshing your blog until you updated and now I can go to bed!

[-R-]

1. You are obviously a much better lawyer than I am.

2. I would have cried much sooner in the process.

3. Good luck tomorrow!

[Beth]

OMG, I don't even know you and I'm so sorry you were subjected to such idiocy. Can you get fingerprinted somewhere else? Maybe someplace that offers notary services offers fingerprinting as well? I suppose you've already considered your alternatives, but man, it truly sucks to be dealing with people who hate their jobs and have zero motivation to be helpful.

[jonniker]

Allison: Fingerprints expire? Honestly?

Ish: Again, this whole thing makes me want to kill myself, very slowly, with blunt objects to the wrists. Like maybe butter knives.

[jes]

You should mail this entry to the Chief of Police, the PD Director of Online Technology, and maybe a few newspapers. Maybe THEN they'll get the hint.

Sorry you had to be subjected to such a harried ordeal.

[smallstatic]

Oh MAN! I am so sorry you got jerked around so badly. Why can't service workers just be helpful?! This also evokes a certain New York-ness for me in how epic it can be to get 'normal people' things like getting a money order accomplished in that city. It will get better, and the fortitude you've shown thus far pretty much insures you'll be able to get throught the process. (V. impressive on the paperwork skills, btw.) On a different note - I'm really excited for you and your husband! :)

[Laura B.]

Oh how I share your fury of having to rely on other people to get information or to move a process along. Things are always fine when I can do them myself, but if I have to call someone? Especially if that person must then call me BACK? Forget it. Everything stalls. HATE.

I can imagine how blindingly frustrating your experience was. I hope everything goes smoothly today.

And, by the way, fingerprints expiring? Are you KIDDING me?

[fats]

Wow - what a horrible day (But very cool that you saw Cynthia Nixon! I saw a picture of the SATC girls today and I now really think she was the hottest one. Sorry, I digress) Anyway, aside from fingerprints expiring (what?!) the one thing I will never understand is why City Hall type places insist on a money order. I understand not wanting personal checks, but cash? What's wrong with cash? Maybe it's for record keeping, but someone could just as easily steal a money order as they could cash, right? I always feel nervous getting a money order for the exact reason you described - I'm afraid when I actually go to present it, it's going to be the wrong amount. Hope it worked out today.

[Ree]

Oh my gosh, I'm having L.A./Big City flashbacks just reading this! I think it should be a federal offense to close a business early. Ugh.

Cynthia Nixon? How totally awesome! Was she tall? She always seems tall to me.

[lawyerish]

We got the fingerprints done! WOO! Thank the LORD.

And yes: fingerprints EXPIRE. Can you believe this? As far as I can tell, I am going to spend the next year going back and forth between police HQ and the immigration office to keep all my fingerprints up to date. GAH.

Cynthia Nixon -- not super-tall, but not short like most celebs. Maybe she was 5-7 or 5-8? Not as tall as me, but not teeny. And she looked older in person, but still good. She was wearing orange pants. But it worked.

[-R-]

Yay! I'm glad you finally got the fingerprints!

[Jackie]

I used to be a runner at a law firm and encountered this sort of thing, uh, pretty much every day. One thing I have to ask though-- why didn't you make someone else do it? My bosses wouldn't even pick something up off the floor because they thought it wasn't worth their time.

[lawyerish]

Jackie - You know, it never occurred to me to have someone else do this (I mean, I guess they could have done the money order stuff but the fingerprints obviously not). Our firm isn't really like that, especially for personal stuff, and I'm not getting paid enough to hire a personal assistant. Yet. :)

[PunditMom]

This is truly the worst part. Just keep focused on the end -- your baby. This whole bureaucratic nightmare killed us,as well -- and we are both lawyers, and used to paperwork and jumping through hoops.