h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well....I'm dumbfounded, gobsmacked with incredulity.

I'm struggling to believe how stupid and pointless the immigration services are in New York City.

*gnashes teeth together in frustration*

I have my work permit, which was the whole point of the exercise of putting myself thro this agony again - to be able to work lawfully.

BUT............



It has two different names on it.

Why?

Let me tell you about this new stupidity...

I arrived at the Federal Plaza once again yesterday...was ushered thro the normal queue outside the building, the shuffled thro various tape barriers again to room 310 where I queued again for a ticket to go to another room....900....where I had to queue again with my numbered ticket.



I was after an hour or so, called up to the desk where I gave my information, and told to wait again to be called...which I was...and went up to the desk to sign and give fingerprints AGAIN....for the umpteenth time this year...but anyhow...

On the form to be signed for my work permit, my maiden name is printed out - I point this out to the official administrative clerk, who says “that’s ok.” I sign the form in my married name because you know, that’s my name now in the eyes of the law. I once again point out that on my previous work permit it is MRS MV and this is what I have filled in on the application that I had to fill in again when I arrived here....she says, “yeh that’s ok,” and then I say, “I’ve signed it in my married name is that ok?” “Sure”....she says.

Off again to queue to be called again to get photo taken.

Eventually I was called to have my photo taken - in my maiden name....I query the photographer, and he says:

Photographer: “This is what’s on the form.”

Me: “But, that is not my name now can you change it please?”

Photographer: “We can’t do that, it’s already in the computer.”

Me: “BUT my last permit was in my married name, I completed the forms here and now in my married name, and signed in my married name.”

Photographer: “Do you know how to change your name on the forms?”

Me: “BUT, I already filled the forms out previously with my correct name, the last card I had was in my married name, I shouldn’t have to change anything, why can’t you correct this?”

Photographer: “We can’t alter what’s in the computer it would be FRAUD.”

Me: *getting rather irate now* “But someone HAS changed my name in the computer, because all the information was correct and now all of a sudden it isn’t.”

Photographer: “We can’t change the information because it would be FRAUD. We go by the Alien number.”

Me: “I don’t believe this.” “This form I have right here, *tapping the form that INS sent me, that confirms the application for my work permit was recieved* has my married name on it, you can see this can’t you?”

Photographer: “Yes, but we can’t alter the information in the computer because it would be FRAUD.”

Me: “Ok, thank you for your time.”

We left with the card. It is printed out with my maiden name but signed in my married name. I can foresee that someone is going to have issues with that, at some point in time. Something to do with sods law and Murphy..

We know now...that all immigration officials are just automatons, they cannot think or they are not allowed to think outside the box and to go get someone to help you with your problem, they just perform their allotted tasks and that’s it, no more or less. We could have sat there all day and not had any joy with this issue just as there are 30 days in every single month of the year because that makes it easier for the admin staff to count.

I want to complain, at someone, but there is no one that will hear me....I wrote to the District Director but haven’t heard anything from him or her - and I don’t expect to. Perhaps writing to Governor Pataki or New York?

*grrrrr*

Great Homeland Security, right? I have a card from immigration that has two different names on it....wonderful.

there there sooth sooth.

I'm frankly gobsmacked myself.

Poor brave noble Vixen. Thinking anti-Murphy thoughts for you.

Oh your such a honey tonic smooving things over like that...

Don't mind if I do...

I can almost imagine you saying that with a soothing pleasant musical voice like the rabbit from a few years back off the Cadbury's Caramel advert...

I am arn't I?

*chuckles*

Of course wee typo there..

or = of

So somebody has changed your name on the computer, thus committing FRAUD.

Same thing happened when we applied for Housing & Council Tax Benefit. Gothly had received this benefit some years before, so was still on their records. The fact that Gothly's title has since changed to Dr. caused us no end of hassle, and for a while they were convinced that there were two Gothlies and that we were trying to pull some kind of funny stunt.

All the details of our current application are in a big ring binder, in chronological order. It's amazing how many bits of paper are involved in applying for these things. But we learned the hard way that, if you want any joy from the council, you have to be exceptionally organised and persistent, and dated records need to be kept of all communication. It looks like it's a whole lot worse with Immigration. I'd advise you to ask all questions by letter, so you have signed records of their replies--but Immigration, unlike other government offices, might not be obliged to reply at all.

there ought to be an annual award for the stupidest bureaucratic muddle and this year US Immigration must be favourites to win

hope this doesnt cause any problems

Oh, dear, MV... Let's hope if anyone does have issues with the two names, that no one gets too seriously bent out of shape about it... You're right, they're idiots.

Who needs Stephen King when I can get my socks scared off me just reading about bureaucratic nightmares? So sorry, hun.

Try doing it in French & being asked "and who was your grandfather on your father's side?"

Since even daddy wooh is in some doubt & the whole tribe are dead, it gets a bit complex!

zdt*5 names & proud of it; wanna see a passport, which one?*

mv. Hope it gets sorted, but this is just the sort of beurocratic mess that happens a lot of the time. things is, everyone is made to ensure that they put the correct data in. That is then seen as verification, therefore by inference, anything in the system must be correct and to change it would be wrong.
They seem to forget that their own employees are human and make mistakes and thus some extra checks are required.

The most humourous one I have had was when I bought my 'bike and sent the V5 off to the DVLA. Bearing in mind I have owned various vehicles over thelast 15 years, I should be well into the system by now.
but no.
They sent the V5 back addressed to, and registered to, MRS Icky.
Gawd knows how they managed that but it took about a month to convince them that I was neither female, nor married.

SR, exactly! I said that, because the photographer kept on antagonising me with the fraud issue, and when I returned to sit down, he approached me again and told me it would be fraud...he just wouldn't leave it alone till I showed him the form that INS sent me with my married name on it *AND* the alien number...





*arrrrrrrgh*!!!



Yes, you have to keep all paperwork, as you never know when some receipt will come in handy, I have all mine in a neat sleeve folder.

Gothly is a Dr?

Thanks Bc.. Yes, they win the Darwinism Award I think

Reminds me, Geo got a cool fish for the back of his new station wagon - with legs...

Adela and JEllen - I can't say it enuff times, 'idiots' and the "why me's"?

Terri - 5 passports *hehehe*

Ictoan, I so agree - after all computer data is manipulated by humans...*yeesh* thanks for your sympathy

Yup, Gothly is in the position of being able to say, "trust me--I'm a doctor." (Doctor of Philosophy, that is, with a PhD in palynological image recognition .)

A friend of mine's got the Darwinfish on the back of his car. Interestingly, his father's a priest....

hope you dont mind me adding my two pennarth.

my name is E........ H.... but ive been known as H.... for all of my life.

i tried to open an account with a well known high street bank and was told that as my first name was E........ it had to be in that name only.
i said that i often got cheques in 'H' only. so what was i to do with them?.

i was told that i either had to get a solicitors letter to prove that i was the said person, or get everyone who wrote the cheques to me, to make sure that they were only in the one said initial that had been chosen to use on the account..
there was no way at all that they would accept that i was H....

suffice it to say.. they didnt get my custom and when i went to another bank, they couldnt believe the stupidity of it all.


h

I thought bank accounts could be opened in any name you like--even Noddy from Toyland. Otherwise, how do businesses get accounts opened in their names?

it's almost* funny if it wasn't so awful talk about incopetance, makes my bank, phone/cable modum/broadband provider/biritsh Gas/ look like they know what they are < doing

Oh no, more s and s.

Does it help at all that you DID get the thing even if the name's wrong? Will this at least be enough to get your work sitch smoothed out for now and maybe see what you can do to correct the name later? I hope so.

Paly wot?

*flips thro online dictionary*

<>

ahhhhh......pretty shapes n' things....

Hi, Serenity of course not...hello! ~waves~ I have a tale about banks also...the short story is - that I was told by said bank (Ellenville) that my British passport needed to be written in English....yeh, sometimes the best thing is to take your custom elsewhere and bitch about it to someone else who is happy to hear it and accept your custom with much fawning servitude and gusto..

My work place is happy with my card, I have documents and stuff to prove all names...so they don't care as long as I work my ass off and turn up on time!

Phew! Then you're alright. Huzzah!

So glad that the people you work for have some brains as opposed to the bureaucrats who did not. Very happy for you MV. Yay!

Speaking of Doctors...a friend got married a few years ago, and I told a colleague who knew her about it. He asked 'What's her name, then?' so I replied 'Still S-----' (ie she didn't change name). So he asked 'What? Did a S----- marry a S-----?' So I said 'No. She just didn't take her husband's name.' So he thought for a while and asked 'Then is it Mrs S----- or Miss S-----?' So I said 'Actually, it's Doctor S-----.' He thought for even longer and asked 'But is it Mrs Doctor or Miss Doctor?.....' (Collapse of stout party)

Similarly, while I am married, there is no Mrs Bonobo. Indeed, when necessary, I will happily answer to my wife's name. The only person who ever seemed to have a problem with this arrangement was her mother, who would insist on informing people of our marital status (neighbours, postpersons, random passers-by), lest they thought that we were 'Living in sin'. It mortified her that we had a nameplate on our flat door with both our names!

(Actually, in Scotland even in the olden days it wasn't that unusual for educated women to keep their own names. Our upstairs neighbour, who was in her eighties, for example went by her own name).