Holy crap, I got a passport.
I should probably wait until I have time to properly blog about this, but yeah. My flight's tomorrow, and USPS didn't know where my passport was last night, so I decided to go up to the Los Angeles Passport Agency this morning. Left San Diego at 4:45am. Brought my pictures, my flight itinerary, my passport locator printout, everything.
7:10-9:00: Arrived. Was sent to the pickup window, as I requested my passport to be held at the agency a week ago. They ignored the request, and told me they'd already shipped my passport. Since I didn't want to risk my trip to Japan on the United States Postal Service's STELLAR reputation for getting packages there on time, I decided to go through the process to get it reissued.
Funny story, the guy a few spaces in front of me in line, wearing a bike helmet, upon receipt of his passport he yelled with joy and ran around screaming YEAAAAAAAAH YEAAAAAAAAH ALRIGHT I FINALLY GOT IT WOOOOOOO ALRIGHT YEAAAAAAAAH and was almost out of the complex entirely before people shouting after him finally conveyed that he left the passport at the window.
Was sent to huge "Stand By" line. Waited in huge "Stand By" line.
9:00-9:15: Was given a ticket with an estimated wait time of 22,000 hours (not kidding). Got sent into the main building (it's an AWESOME looking building). Gave the ticket at the door, and was sent to stand in a relatively short line. This was in the main building, where there were 17 windows with very thick glass, numbers being called every 5 minutes or so, and about 250 people crowded around waiting.
9:15-2:00 (not kidding): Gave my information to the lady at the window when I reached the front of the short line. She made sure my papers were in order, gave me a form to fill out for claiming "non-receipt of passport", gave me a ticket numbered C6694, and sent me to wait with the other people. They were currently working on C6661.
My estimated wait time was 1 hour and 15 minutes.
After about 4 hours of watching the one, bad TV in the room, tuned to CNN, with no volume, I was amused by a couple things. Not only is it more fun to watch Bush's audiences watch him speak than it is to watch him speak (try it sometime), but I realized that I can't stand to watch Michael Moore speak, EVEN WHEN I CAN'T HEAR HIM SPEAKING.
The numbering system, I soon realized, had people divided into categories. The A numbers were for people with *brand new* applications, needing passports the same day. The C numbers were for people with "special circumstances". I noticed very soon that they were processing about 15 A numbers for every C number. It was past noon by the time they got to C6680, and I had almost given up hope that I'd get a passport at all.
Turns out, the "special circumstances" tickets needed to be handled by a supervisor, and there was one supervisor on duty. Each special circumstances ticket (including mine, processed eventually) took roughly 10 to 25 minutes to handle.
I was almost *PANICKING* when the queue reached C6688 and it was already 1:15, because I had heard from someone who talked with them earlier that no tickets issued after 2pm would result in passports issued the same day, as the pickup window closed at 3 and it took a bare minimum of 1 hour to prepare a new passport.
Luckily, around 1:20, they finished all the A numbers for the day (HUNDREDS), and supervisors were freed. Five supervisors were now brought on to handle the C numbers.
You can imagine my panic as, at 1:50, the lady assisting me had been gone "working on it" for 5 minutes already. Fortunately, not only did she show up by 1:55 with my application in hand, but she said that after the window closes, they take everyone back inside the building, and don't leave until everyone's been helped. That, of course, was QUITE a relief; I was almost completely resigned to not being able to make my flight (tomorrow, by the way).
Whew.
2:00-3:00: Waited in a line outside (HO GOD YES FRESH AIR) to pick up the passport. Figured that by the time I got to the front of the line, they'd have finished preparing it. People near me in line had been through the line 3, 4 times under the same hope. What else can you do?
3:00-4:45: At 3, reached the window. The lady quickly told me that my passport was still being prepared, but gave me a ticket to go back inside and wait (nooooooooooo) for my name to be called (okay good) when my passport was ready.
Went inside with Joe, who I'd met up with by then. Waited a while, talking with various people I'd befriended throughout the day (I got to see a Chinese birth certificate! It's cool!)
In the end, they finally called my name "BenHAMEEN Morris" and, soon enough, I was walking out the door with passport in hand.
...Straight into LA rush hour traffic. Got home at 8. >_<
I deserve a vacation now :(
Well, time to pack, and I fly tomorrow. Might blog a bit, but will mostly be saving things for a big update when I get back here. I'm traveling with Joe, my roommate, so we might joint blog a bit about it, dunno. Yay japan!
*pof*
7:10-9:00: Arrived. Was sent to the pickup window, as I requested my passport to be held at the agency a week ago. They ignored the request, and told me they'd already shipped my passport. Since I didn't want to risk my trip to Japan on the United States Postal Service's STELLAR reputation for getting packages there on time, I decided to go through the process to get it reissued.
Funny story, the guy a few spaces in front of me in line, wearing a bike helmet, upon receipt of his passport he yelled with joy and ran around screaming YEAAAAAAAAH YEAAAAAAAAH ALRIGHT I FINALLY GOT IT WOOOOOOO ALRIGHT YEAAAAAAAAH and was almost out of the complex entirely before people shouting after him finally conveyed that he left the passport at the window.
Was sent to huge "Stand By" line. Waited in huge "Stand By" line.
9:00-9:15: Was given a ticket with an estimated wait time of 22,000 hours (not kidding). Got sent into the main building (it's an AWESOME looking building). Gave the ticket at the door, and was sent to stand in a relatively short line. This was in the main building, where there were 17 windows with very thick glass, numbers being called every 5 minutes or so, and about 250 people crowded around waiting.
9:15-2:00 (not kidding): Gave my information to the lady at the window when I reached the front of the short line. She made sure my papers were in order, gave me a form to fill out for claiming "non-receipt of passport", gave me a ticket numbered C6694, and sent me to wait with the other people. They were currently working on C6661.
My estimated wait time was 1 hour and 15 minutes.
After about 4 hours of watching the one, bad TV in the room, tuned to CNN, with no volume, I was amused by a couple things. Not only is it more fun to watch Bush's audiences watch him speak than it is to watch him speak (try it sometime), but I realized that I can't stand to watch Michael Moore speak, EVEN WHEN I CAN'T HEAR HIM SPEAKING.
The numbering system, I soon realized, had people divided into categories. The A numbers were for people with *brand new* applications, needing passports the same day. The C numbers were for people with "special circumstances". I noticed very soon that they were processing about 15 A numbers for every C number. It was past noon by the time they got to C6680, and I had almost given up hope that I'd get a passport at all.
Turns out, the "special circumstances" tickets needed to be handled by a supervisor, and there was one supervisor on duty. Each special circumstances ticket (including mine, processed eventually) took roughly 10 to 25 minutes to handle.
I was almost *PANICKING* when the queue reached C6688 and it was already 1:15, because I had heard from someone who talked with them earlier that no tickets issued after 2pm would result in passports issued the same day, as the pickup window closed at 3 and it took a bare minimum of 1 hour to prepare a new passport.
Luckily, around 1:20, they finished all the A numbers for the day (HUNDREDS), and supervisors were freed. Five supervisors were now brought on to handle the C numbers.
You can imagine my panic as, at 1:50, the lady assisting me had been gone "working on it" for 5 minutes already. Fortunately, not only did she show up by 1:55 with my application in hand, but she said that after the window closes, they take everyone back inside the building, and don't leave until everyone's been helped. That, of course, was QUITE a relief; I was almost completely resigned to not being able to make my flight (tomorrow, by the way).
Whew.
2:00-3:00: Waited in a line outside (HO GOD YES FRESH AIR) to pick up the passport. Figured that by the time I got to the front of the line, they'd have finished preparing it. People near me in line had been through the line 3, 4 times under the same hope. What else can you do?
3:00-4:45: At 3, reached the window. The lady quickly told me that my passport was still being prepared, but gave me a ticket to go back inside and wait (nooooooooooo) for my name to be called (okay good) when my passport was ready.
Went inside with Joe, who I'd met up with by then. Waited a while, talking with various people I'd befriended throughout the day (I got to see a Chinese birth certificate! It's cool!)
In the end, they finally called my name "BenHAMEEN Morris" and, soon enough, I was walking out the door with passport in hand.
...Straight into LA rush hour traffic. Got home at 8. >_<
I deserve a vacation now :(
Well, time to pack, and I fly tomorrow. Might blog a bit, but will mostly be saving things for a big update when I get back here. I'm traveling with Joe, my roommate, so we might joint blog a bit about it, dunno. Yay japan!
*pof*