The Beauty of Bureaucracy

Today I spent close to half of the day on the phone, talking to or trying to reach, someone who could tell me something about the status of one of our client's claims. It was really important I find out the status today because it was our appeals deadline, so I needed some time to do the appeal if necessary.

This client lives outside of the country, so I started out calling the state agency that I thought was handling his claim. They directed me to call a specific Social Security office that handled international claims. I called that number and was told I should try someone named Tracy. I called Tracy and spoke with her assistant, Yolanda, who looked at the computer file and said she'd need to transfer me to someone who would have access to the file.

She transferred me to Lisa who looked in the computer file and said I needed to talk to a claims rep. She transferred me to a claims rep named Elizabeth Taylor. ("Just like the movie star," she said. "Before or after she went batshit crazy," I said. Unfortunately, it was the latter.) Elizabeth then gave me the number of Mr. Pena, who, she said, was the manager of the office that was in charge of this particular case.

I called Mr. Pena and left him a message. I waited for a while and, knowing Social Security as I do, I started trying to track him down. I googled his phone number and got a few hits on numbers in the same department. I called one and, amazingly, got a real live person! When I asked her if Mr. Pena had an assistant she said, "Yes, his assistant's name is Tracy. Here is her number." She then gave me Tracy's number.

After hanging up, I thought to myself, "Heeeey. Tracy? I wonder if..." And sure enough, the number she gave me was the number for Tracy that I had called originally. Like, four hours before. This time, though, when I called Tracy, she picked up! And after I explained everything to her, she looked in the computer and told me she was going to have to talk to Lisa. Yes! The same Lisa!

Finally, four hours later, I had my answer. Kind of. I never really found out the status of the case, but I found out enough to do what I needed to do. It wasn't everything I needed, but I've found that you can't always get what you want. Especially when a gigantic government agency is involved.