Fastpass for Passports?

Well, it's done! We got together all our passport stuff and went off to our local Post Office this morning to take part in what they have advertised as a Passport Application "Open House". What a joke!! We arrived at 10am, which was the earliest we could coax our children out the door on a cold, rainy Saturday morning. When we arrived, we could tell there would be a wait by the standing room only packed mailbox room. Others who were waiting alerted us to the fact that we needed a number, so we took one (601) and soon after heard them call the number "69". Hmm... judging by the fact that T had to be at work at noon we were a little uncertain as to how long this might take!

Once in the tightly packed "waiting room" it became clear that this "open house" was nothing more than an advertisement to draw folks to the Post Office all at the same time..... not well planned out, no chairs or even a clean floor to sit on, no bathrooms available and for the poor people who actually collect their mail at this facility, no parking. Not only that, but for the first hour that we waited, they processed only 1 or 2 people at a time. One might expect that if they are advertising a special "open house" they would actually devote more than one or two postal workers to the undertaking.

It was our great fortune that many people just plain old gave up! They went through the 70's very slowly, but once they started calling the 80's and 90's, the numbers went whizzing by. We also benefitted from them FINALLY adding two more postal workers to the work crew, so they had 3-4 processing at the same time. When our number was finally called, we fortunately had everything we needed, a great postal worker and left at 11:55. T was a bit late for work, but we're done!

As our children complained, moaned and groaned for the two hours we waited, we had some good discussions about working as a team, not having it always be just about you, waiting in lines wherever we go being a fact of life and how sometimes there really is just nothing you can do about it. It was an extremely frustrating experience, especially when we tried to call another local post office to see if we could make an appointment and the listed phone number for that post office had been disconnected!! T and I wondered more than once if our waiting would be at all fruitful or if we'd have to pass on our number to get him to work on time. We joked about selling our number! In the end, we were pleasantly surprised, as the process was quite simple. Now, we'll see if those passports ever arrive!