Why Are Simple Things So Hard?

     What's it like dealing with Social Security these days? Here's a sample. Client gets approved. The field office needs a copy of his birth certificate. Client's father was in the military and assigned overseas when the client was born, overseas. His birth was registered with the U.S. embassy of the country where he was born. That's the way these things are done. The client reports back to me that the field office told him that the Department of State birth registration form isn't good enough. I wonder if someone at the field office doesn't know that this sort of document meets the agency's requirements or if there's some other problem. It takes two weeks and several phone calls before someone at the field office calls back to say the State Department form is fine. It's just that the client faxed it to them and they need to see the original. They never told the client this was the problem. They must have given the client their fax number. We didn't. The field office suggests that the client come around to the back door of the office and knock.  Someone should be there to inspect the original and give it back to the client. We were told they were doing this sort of thing regularly. We hadn't heard they were doing this. Certainly, the client hadn't been told they were doing that. Remember, the field office gave the client their fax number and only later decided that the faxed copy wasn't good enough but then failed to tell the client what he needed to do.

     Who knows whether other field offices are doing this back door business?

     Dealing with Social Security has always been harder than it should be. It's much harder now.