So I filled in my form (a really, really badly designed form), and got my photos, and spent my lunch-hour crossing London in an immensely hot and over-crowded Tube train, to arrive at the agency's hideously ugly, brutal office round the arse-end of Victoria station.
And there I was confronted with the sheer surreal brilliance of the ineptitude of central Government when I was told this by an apologetic junior functionary:
Yes, sir, of course you can have the Same Day premium service. You need to book an appointment to have that, and the earliest appointment we have is, er, the 9th of August.So, just to be clear, the "same day" service can actually be accessed after you have waited 11 days.
This rather sweaty-looking arsehole is the woman responsible -- Sarah Rapson, the "chief executive" of the Government's passport agency, who has the effrontery to draw a salary from the public purse of in excess of £110,000*:
But she shouldn't take the rap alone. This arsehole is the Home Secretary, Theresa May, who is the political boss of the passport service and who, presumably, thinks Sarah and her cronies are doing a bang-up job (Theresa gobbles-up £145,000 a year from the public trough, plus a pretty foxy pension, entitlement to severance payments, and God knows what Grace and Favour stately homes):
We shouldn't be surprised. Theresa is famous for two things: (1) deciding that, despite viciously attacking us for the entire early part of her career, she now thinks gay men are lovely and not (necessarily) evil deviants. And (2) wearing leopard-skin print, fuck-me shoes:
What else could you expect from someone like her?
But she shouldn't take all the politcal rap since the cretin who appointed her to her current position is, of course, The Boy Wonder himself -- our multi-millionaire Prime Minister and glorious leader, "Dave" Cameron (he gets £198,000 from the trough, plus all manner of extras including more luxury accommodations than you can shake a stick at):
With this shower of morons in charge, is it any wonder that Orwellian creations like a "same day" service that you can't have for nearly a fortnight have infected the public sector?
I am so cross that I would gladly do evil things to all of them right now although, since I am a law-abiding Pacifist/coward, I will confine myself to slagging them off anonymously on my blog. Wankers.
*This data is from the central Government's transparency agenda website run by the Cabinet Office. So it's probably wrong. And that figure does NOT include the final salary pension scheme available to most public servants which is worth something like 20% on top of her salary, and nor does it include any bonuses. I couldn't find out if she had received any bonuses in the last year because central Government's transparency agenda website is one of the most appallingly badly designed ways of communicating that I have ever encountered. Can you tell how cross I am?
9 comments:
It's good to get it off your chest though, yes? Tiro
PS Does doing loads and loads of posts all at once but less frequently really achieve anything ahead of fewer but more regular posts?
PPS Leave public sector pensions alone. For those of us not lucky enough to be at director or CEO level that is the only damn perk we get. Contrary to popular belief the vast majority of us are not at all well paid relative to private sector workers and many of us do jobs that are a lot more stressful than any in public sector! I could rant on this subject almost as well as you but I will restrain myself.
Consider yourself lucky you don't live overseas. My new passport cost 130 quid for 'normal' service (4 weeks) and at an unfavourable exchange rate.
Actually I don't begrudge most public sector workers their final salary pension schemes at all (though perhaps career average salary schemes are "fairer").
It seems to me that decent pension schemes are the mark of a civilised society, and the fact that the private sector has abolished them (and ensured most of their staff will lead miserable lives as they eke out their final days) is no reason for the public sector to follow them in a race to the bottom.
But, Tiro, honestly, you have no idea what my life is like or what my motivations are, so I'm not sure how you feel qualified to judge whether or not binge posting is a better use of my time! I've asked readers for their views on the two approaches and the overwhelming majority felt the same as me. So binge posting it is: stop whining and get over it!
David Chappell: No, actually, I don't feel lucky (see my comments above on a race to the bottom). The fact that others have it even worse is no reason for anyone to accept a piss-poor standard of public service.
God, I am Bolshy this evening.
le Duc, I think I agree with you (I skimmed a bit). There is no reason why certain people should follow a trend 'because it seems right'. There's a whole lot wrong with this country and at the moment it lies with the Tories (after all, they are in charge). They have been and are, at the root of some incredibly stupid poliyical mistakes. 'Dave' needs to 'do one' A.S.A.P!!!
The coalition government arranged all this incompetence in a year? Gosh.
A few points, Le Duc:
1 Many countries require 6 months validity before you allowed entry with an unexpired passport. You should have renewed it then - they do add some time to the 10 years' for which the new passport is valid.
2 You could have taken a day off work (and possibly lost a day's pay in addition to the £130 fee)and taken an expensive trip to Peterborough. You'd still have had to book an appointment.
3 When I did this, late last year, I found security far stricter than even our benighted airports; perhaps not surprising when their systems drive people to the same level of fury that you have expressed. I was also forced to shell out £5 for photographs as they didn't like the ones I had.
GS: No, I'm sure they had help from the incompetent, brain-dead twats who were in power before them. Have you not noticed that I attack all political parties on here, primarily because they are all egotistical wankers who are only in it for themselves and couldn't run the proverbial whelk stall...
Anonymous: I can't believe that you have been so cowed that you are now writing an apologia to explain how I should have done it, and how by implication it's my fault for not anticipating that central government would be so shite, and how I should have paid out my money to renew my passport even though I had no need of it at the time, etc, etc. And no, Peterborough was not an option -- the kindly junior functionary checked the availability of appointments at every passport office around the UK (I could have had my "same day" service in Edinburgh just a week later, on 4th August).
Why do we expect so little from these people who lay down rules that we must follow ("you may not leave or enter this country without a passport"), who then set ludicrous charges that we must pay to comply with their rules, and who then are so incompetent that they offer a "same day" service provided you wait nearly a fortnight when you try to access it?
You seem a little demob happy, LeDuc! And why should you not, after such long and distinguished service?
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