I must define something: When you are in the FedEx in downtown Brooklyn with a dog that is neither yours, nor your companion's (the FedEx customer) and a guy in the line of approx. twenty-three people pets it and compares it's neck muscles to those of the Moray Eel, which he claims was exported form China to the USA (by this time you suspect Cocaine to be involved with his enthusiasm) as a threat to not monkey around with the Trade Deficit, you might just be 'lucky'. But when a woman who appears to have minor leprosy of the face--that is the only part of her body that is visible, due to her heavy winter bundling, so the disease may spread further for all we know--proceeds to talk to you eloquently about everything from the French Revolution and Marx to Neoliberalism and Egypt (all after her ice breaker about electing the dog in your carriage as the next president), AND another character enters the store engaged in what can only be described as the human equivalent of mildly unannoying, yet very present barking, directed towards none other than the Leper, the Cocaine user, and the dog... you have to start asking yourself some serious questions about what is going on in said FedEx.
The dog was being walked, as a job, by my companion, so the easy mystery is out of the way. And now for the real investigative report: Why were these and the other twenty people in line? Mailing packages for Valentine's Day in some cases, but for the most part, making copies and filling out forms; the unsaid torture that is a very real torture and a very real part of the interface between Citizens and Government. As to the question of whether or not these requirements of bureaucracy are suitably sadistic as to define them as torture, I think that the time that human beings are forced to squander in the name of official stamps can be described as mental anguish, and the methods of disorientation that are part of going from one building to the next in order to obtain the appropriate signatures to receive said stamps are arguably taught at the School of the Americas.
And Why were these people talking to me, anyway? 1) I had a dog, which apparently adds significantly to one's approachability and 2) there was only one person working in the entire store, alas... What's the rush? Why only one person working? I would have to do more field work, perhaps visiting the store at several different times of day, even different seasons, investigating it as though I were Monet against a field of haystacks. My educated guess tells me that the proprietor of the store knows that these people are completely reliant on this branch of FedEx for the clerical chores they must complete in order to escape deportation, rescue money owed to them, or heaven forbid make a request for contact in order to allow the government to better serve them. Economically speaking, it may not be in the owner's best interest to schedule another worker, despite the crowd. If someone else is on the clock, cutting the line in two, yes it would make things more efficient... for the customers. But is that really the point? FedEx is going to get their business one way or another because of their proximity to key Government operations. Very few people will decide to take their business elsewhere, because they can't imagine that things will take as long as they do, and by the time that they become aware of the reality, it will take them just as long or longer to go somewhere else! So it makes no sense, in business terms, to have someone else on the clock, draining profits. This of course, is proximity-based speculation. Other FedEx stores are most likely different, in order to meet the needs of a different client base.
The dog was being walked, as a job, by my companion, so the easy mystery is out of the way. And now for the real investigative report: Why were these and the other twenty people in line? Mailing packages for Valentine's Day in some cases, but for the most part, making copies and filling out forms; the unsaid torture that is a very real torture and a very real part of the interface between Citizens and Government. As to the question of whether or not these requirements of bureaucracy are suitably sadistic as to define them as torture, I think that the time that human beings are forced to squander in the name of official stamps can be described as mental anguish, and the methods of disorientation that are part of going from one building to the next in order to obtain the appropriate signatures to receive said stamps are arguably taught at the School of the Americas.
And Why were these people talking to me, anyway? 1) I had a dog, which apparently adds significantly to one's approachability and 2) there was only one person working in the entire store, alas... What's the rush? Why only one person working? I would have to do more field work, perhaps visiting the store at several different times of day, even different seasons, investigating it as though I were Monet against a field of haystacks. My educated guess tells me that the proprietor of the store knows that these people are completely reliant on this branch of FedEx for the clerical chores they must complete in order to escape deportation, rescue money owed to them, or heaven forbid make a request for contact in order to allow the government to better serve them. Economically speaking, it may not be in the owner's best interest to schedule another worker, despite the crowd. If someone else is on the clock, cutting the line in two, yes it would make things more efficient... for the customers. But is that really the point? FedEx is going to get their business one way or another because of their proximity to key Government operations. Very few people will decide to take their business elsewhere, because they can't imagine that things will take as long as they do, and by the time that they become aware of the reality, it will take them just as long or longer to go somewhere else! So it makes no sense, in business terms, to have someone else on the clock, draining profits. This of course, is proximity-based speculation. Other FedEx stores are most likely different, in order to meet the needs of a different client base.
Now to take malfeasance even further in conspiratorial speculation--not one that I am on board with, simply a proposition--I would argue that it is also in the Government's best interest that the processing of their documents be carried out INEFFICIENTLY. After all, a net result of most scenarios in which paperwork must be processed by Citizens, is to waive payment of a fee or fine, or at least reduce it. Money. To suggest that the government request the sloth pace of FedEx would be to go too far. It is much more likely that FedEx has learned this behavior from the government after years as it's thumb.
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