BUREAUCRACY IS IDIOCRASY GONE MAD: PART 2

Following on from our Herculean efforts in part 1, we are still knee deep in it. With an added twist too.

I phoned the VICTORIAN COMMISSION FOR GAMBLING AND LIQUOR REGULATION (State Government!) as soon as we got home and I’d sufficiently calmed down. Just in case. Better to have two options right?

“I need to get a Proof Of Age card for my son,” I said to the friendly male voice who answered.

“No problem ma’am, I’ll send one out in the mail today.”

“We can’t do it online?”

“Err… no. The forms are being changed.”

“So you send it out, we fill it in, take it to the Post office and pay $10, right?”

“Yes, then he’ll receive the card in the mail.”

Deep breath. “How long? Before he receives his card I mean?”

“Allow a month or so? Maybe a little longer since we’re changing the forms?”

“No way to speed it up? He needs his Youth Allowance and Centrelink won’t recognise the Key Pass we got.”

“Happens all the time!” He chuckled. “They keep giving wrong information out. Shame you had to go to all that trouble…”

“Yes but he only has fourteen days to provide it. Then we have to start again! There’s no express thingy we can pay extra for?”

“I’m sorry ma’am. Nothing more I can do from this end.”

We didn’t get do the long drive to Mildura. The day before we were due to leave, my mother was admitted to another (her fifth) hospital.

“There’s Kyneton, on Tuesday?” son said checking his phone as we sat waiting for yet another Specialist on the Friday.

“I need to check if your uncle’s going to be here that day hon. Someone’s got to be around in case grandpa has another fall at home.” I’d be leaving my father solely in the care of my other, sixteen year old son.

Brother arrived at the hospital three hours later. Took out his phone.

“Tomorrow I’m in Canberra. Monday I have a meeting in Sydney. Tuesday… Hmm… so far I have nothing on. I can keep an eye out on mum and dad. May as well book it.”

“Great. Kyneton’s a lot closer too.” I said.

Son logged on to VicRoads again, credit card out, ready to book.

“Umm… The appointment’s gone mum. Someone else beat us to it.”

“You’re kidding right?”

“No?”

“Look anywhere! I don’t care. Tuesday.”

The letter from the Victorian Commission For Gambling And Liquor Regulation hadn’t arrived yet. Four days to travel 20 kilometres and it was still walking… walking… I made a mental note to chase it up.

“Hey, there’s an opening in Carlton on Tuesday!” Son was super-excited. “That’s here in Melbourne right?”

“Book. Pay. Now!” I held my breath as he toggled between screens for a minute or so.

“Done.”

“We’re in?”

“Tuesday 2.45!”

Yes! The Gods were finally smiling! No long road-trip. Only a twenty minute drive from the hospital - even allowing for city traffic!

I didn’t follow up with the Proof of Age Card. He’d pass his test on Tuesday; get his Learner’s Permit in the mail a couple of days later… We were still within the fourteen day window. Yes!

Tuesday came.

“We can’t be late mum. If you’re more than fifteen minutes late, you have to re-book and pay all over again.”

“We won’t be late. We’ll swing by the hospital on the way and leave plenty of time to get there. Don’t worry.”

Son had not purchased the Learner Driver’s Handbook. He’d done the practice test online a couple of times and “breezed it”. He’d also figured out a cheat, something to do with right-clicking the mouse?

We visited with mum, and then headed for the car-park, where we had to pre-pay at a machine before exiting. We were deep in conversation. I put a fifty dollar note in the slot, grabbed the change and we rushed to the elevator to get two floors below. Reached the car.

“Where’s the ticket?” I searched wallet, bag, either side of my car-seat, outside the car. “Do you have it?”

My son shook his head. Then he gave me that “it’s your fault again” look.

“Crap. I think I forgot to take it from the machine! Quick, run see if it’s still there!”

Our ‘plenty of time’ was rapidly shrinking.

I left the car, remembering there was a Car Park Office at street level. I spotted my son coming back, shaking his head.

“What if I go and grab another ticket from the entrance? We’ve already paid right? I can just pull one out and we can use that to exit.”

“Okay, you go do that; I’ll run to the Office and explain what happened.”

“They’ll make you pay for a lost ticket. That’s the daily rate.”

“I don’t care. We need to go now!”

We both raced off. I found the Office. Knocked on the glass window. Two guys were fiddling with the computer system. There was a series of screens, and I watched my son in one, pretending to be a car, walking up to the boom-gate and pressing the button. He wasn’t a car. No ticket emerged. He tried it twice more before walking away.

“The guy you’re looking for isn’t here,” one of the technicians said. “I saw him earlier; he’s wearing an orange vest.”

“Can you contact him? I lost my ticket and I need to get the car out ASAP!”

“I’m afraid not.”

“So there’s only one guy for the entire car-park and I’m supposed to look for him over eight floors?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry.”

I rushed back to the car.

“Couldn’t do it mum.”

“I know,” I said, but spared him the details of how ridiculous he’d looked; he was getting really nervous now. “What if I drive behind a car and just follow them out?”

“Mum the boom-gate will come down on our car!”

“I’ll floor it. How much time do we have?” I started the engine and drove up behind a car whose occupant was sliding their card in.

“Fifteen minutes according to the GPS.”

“Hold on!”

He held on. I pressed down on the accelerator and we made it with about a second to spare, my son’s head out the window, watching the gate coming down behind us.

We made it! I stuck my middle finger out at the many cameras watching us.

“Mum!” Yeah, sometimes I forget my age...

“Just get us there.”

Somehow, we arrived at VicRoads with a minute to spare. Don’t ask. I may be receiving some unpleasant surprises in the mail…

A voluptuous young woman in a too-tight skirt greeted us.

“Learner’s Permit?”

“Yes!”

She looked at my son. “Have you filled out this form yet?”

Poor boy had filled out so many forms the past week. I took a quick peek. “He hasn’t.”

“You both look a little nervous,” she commented.

I was tempted. I was. Son shot me a warning look.

“No, we’re good, there was a lot of traffic…”

“Fill in this form and I’ll let them now you’re here. There are a few people ahead of you but there shouldn’t be too much of a wait hopefully.”

Hopefully? I looked at the packed waiting area, about thirty or so teens all with heads bowed and fingers tapping on mobile screens.

“It’s like a doctor’s waiting room,” I said to my son. I thought of those possibly soon to arrive in the mail speeding fines…

“Mum that’s me!” Forty five minutes later, he heard his name. Folder with every piece of identification neatly placed inside, we stood in front of the counter. A friendly young lady led him through the process of providing identification. He emptied the entire contents out, and then reached into his wallet for the Key Card, proud to have everything so organised (having already learned the bureaucratic process).

She laughed. “I only need your Birth Certificate and a Medicare Card.” She processed those. We were almost there. The row of test computers waited, a few feet away.

“Can you read that bottom line of numbers?” she asked him, indicating a small square paper tacked to the wall behind her.

He didn’t speak.

“Read the line!” I said. I could clearly see the six numbers displayed there. Clearly!

He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “I can’t see them mum!”

“What do you mean you can’t see them?” I was loud! Several heads turned.

“I can’t!” he hissed more than whispered.

“Try harder! Squint or something!”

The friendly young lady frowned. “Do you wear glasses?”

“No?”

“And you can’t read the bottom line?”

“No…”

She sighed. “You can sit the test today but we can’t issue a permit until you bring a letter from an optometrist and you get glasses so you can prove you can read those numbers.”

Pushing aside the fact that I’d just discovered my son was blind, I asked, “If we get the glasses and come back here, and he proves he can read those numbers, how soon before he gets his permit in the mail?”

“Two to three weeks.”

Groan. I should have followed up on that other letter. That thing about hindsight…

He passed the test. There was no mouse to right-click and apparently he hadn’t come across most of the questions so just fluked it. He got 86% correct and the pass was 72%.

“Hey mum, what happens to all the questions I got wrong? What if when I’m driving, I come across one of those situations? I won’t know what to do!”

There’s logic somewhere in that statement.

The journey home was… interesting. We went through the whole cycle of, “I’m not blind,” “Yes you are!” “But I can see perfectly fine,” “You couldn’t make out numbers two metres away!” “I’m still not wearing glasses!” “Yes you are!” “I’m going to Google how I can fake it,” “No you’re NOT!”

“Can we go to an optometrist now?” he finally asked having run out of arguments.

“Why oh why did you not tell me you had trouble seeing?”

“Umm… I didn’t know?”

“How could you not know?”

“How can you not know what you don’t know?”

He had a point. I was about to laud his profound reasoning when I got:

“Why didn’t you get my eyes tested anyway? It’s all your fault.”

“Umm… I didn’t know?”

At the optometrist, he couldn’t be seen until 11.00 the next day.

“You’ve never tested his eyes before?” the bespectacled man asked, a hint of disapproval leaking out.

“He never complained.” Was I a bad mother? He made me feel like a bad mother.

“Don’t worry young man, once you get those glasses, you’ll see a brand new world.”

“But I can see now!”

“You’ll see the leaves on the trees, all those wonderful small details you’ve not noticed before. You’ll see beautiful-”

I had to cut him off. I had to. “So after the test, how soon before he gets his glasses?”

“It depends on the prescription.” He was a bit miffed now, his soliloquy denied.

“Ball-park?” I held my breath. Again.

“Usually within a week, but like I said, depends on the prescription. One eye could be functioning better than the other. Best allow up to ten days.”

“Thank you.”

The optometrist appointment was a real eye-opener (pardon the pun).

"Yep, you're definitely short-sighted," she said after half an hour of testing during which I heard many a gasp of wonder from my son. He could see!

Have you ever tried to get a soon to be 18 year old male offspring to chose frames? Don't do it. Throw a whole heap of money at them and let them go alone. Your life will not be shortened by x years.

An hour later, he'd chosen the "ones he hated the least". That was good enough for me.

I paid half the cost upfront as a deposit. Total cost $658. "Allow 10-14 days," the receptionist said, handing over the receipt. I then mentally added this figure to the VicRoads one. I really should have pushed for the Proof of Age Card. We were looking at at least six weeks now.

Back at Centrelink. The wait wasn't too bad this time. Back in front of another very tired lady.

"Can we extend the 14 day period for his photo ID?" I quietly and with extreme patience further explained our predicament.

To her credit, she listened. Nodded once or twice. A brief glimmer of hope emerged, then I waited, having finished with "so is it possible?"

"I'm afraid not. He cannot receive NewStart until we have the photo ID."

"But surely you have a button or something you can press for extenuating circumstances?"

Son gave me the look that says "You've used big words and it's not helping."

"You know, special difficult things outside of our control?" I tried again.

"No. I think you've been told several times now, (she'd obviously been reading my prior attempts at introducing logic) that we can only go ahead and lodge the form once we sight his photo ID."

"I've explained! It's going to take way over a month! He starts University in three weeks. Look! He got his Learners Permit yesterday, he passed the test and the ID requirements there!"

"Yes, but he hasn't been issued with his Learner's Permit ID Card!" She was shuffling in her seat. Was she too seeing the ridiculousness?

"Please. I am shuttling between hospital, looking after my father and all this running around. Can you please find a way to help us?"

"Have you applied for the Proof of Age Card?"

Oh God. "Yes - well no. I phoned the Liquor place as the last lady suggested but the form hasn't arrived yet. He said he'd put it in the mail that day but it's almost been a week?"

"Oh, that's Australia Post. They've changed their policy. You need to allow a week now for inner city mail deliveries. They've cut staff due to fewer people sending letters via mail."

I frowned. She frowned.

"About that button..." I had to give it one last shot despite the less than gentle nudge from my son. "You sure there's nothing you can-"

"We've been over this. The system won't allow us."

"But he is missing out on two months of payments, and it's not his fault! None of it!"

"Mum can we go please?" My voice I think may have risen to unacceptable heights. He did that pulling away, "I'm not with her" shift with his chair.

"Look. I'll start the new claim from today okay? That will buy you another fourteen days."

"But that's not enough-"

"Mum. Get up."

I got up.

Back in the car, I headed for the car-park exit. “Don’t do that screaming thing,” son warned me once we were on the road.

“I want to!”

“Please don’t!”

“How come some people breeze through life and we have to-”

“Mum, I’m blind! I’m mourning here. I don’t want to talk about it!”

I did bend over the steering-wheel at the lights. But I screamed on the inside.

“I can so see the leaves,” son said as we turned into our street.

“Well you’ll see more of them or maybe-”

“I should have tried the one-eye thing, at VicRoads,” he said, shutting one eye first and then the other. “Whoa… Everything is blurry now!”

“You so need those glasses!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“The frames were nice right? You’ll look all studious and stuff. It will be cool.”

“No it won’t! It’s gonna be on my licence! And then I’ll lose them or break them and then-”

“Just trying to help…”

“Let me mourn, please.”

“I have a blind son. Who’d have thought?”

“Stop the car. Now! I’m walking home.”

"What happened to this being the 'be nice to your mum month' since you're going to Uni soon and I'm going to miss you?"

“I’m opening the door!”

I shut up.

Author's Note

You might need to read Part 1 first to fully appreciate the madness...