Mail Time (again)

This time it’s the New York City Department of Finance’s turn. Last week I got a notice in the mail explaining that I owed $75 for an unpaid mutilated inspection sticker ticket. This was very interesting to me, for reasons that I will explain with a handy timeline:

Early August 2006 – I send in my registration renewal form (exp Aug 25), updating my address, along with the payment.

Late August 2006 – I receive a notice that it will cost more money to renew my registration, since I now live in NYC, where everything has to cost more. They enclose a temporary registration to hold me over until I give them more money for a real one. I display this temporary registration in my vehicle.

September 2006 – I go about two weeks without touching my car. It needs some repairs and I walk everywhere anyway.

Late September 2006 – During which time my car gets a ticket (actually two, but I only notice one) for expired registration. By now my new registration has come and is displayed, but I have to go fight the ticket. I go in, plead my case, and it is dismissed. Hey, the system works (I think).

September 29, 2006 – I bring my car in for those repairs so it will pass inspection, and get a new inspection sticker.

October 5, 2006 – I realize I had two tickets, so I go back in to see if I need another hearing. Nope, they were both dismissed….but at this time they inform me that I had yet another ticket in September for a mutilated inspection sticker. This poses a slight problem, as I no longer even have that sticker on my car to prove it’s not mutilated. I plead my case, and it’s dismissed again. I must have an honest face. The judge tells me to hang on to all my paperwork for 8 ½ years(!) in case anything goes wrong. What’s going to go wrong?

Last week – Oh. I get that notice saying I haven’t paid a ticket I had dismissed a month ago. This should be easy to sort out. It hasn’t been 8 ½ years yet, so I still have that paperwork.

Today – I figure out what went wrong. The judge dismissed my mutilated inspection sticker, but gave me a paper that said he dismissed my expired registration sticker (which had already been dismissed). The dates and violation numbers seem to reflect this clearly, but people who push paper for a living often turn out to be mindless automatons.

(Case in point: In 2004 I tried to change my license from MA to NY. NY has a rule that an out of state license must be issued more than 6 months ago before they will change it over. Mass licenses don’t (didn’t?) have a date of issue on them. No problem: my license was set to expire in a month, meaning it must be more than 6 months old, right? Even more convincingly, my license said “under 21 until 9/23/99” meaning it must have been issued before this date nearly five years previous. Raise your hand if you think this ironclad logic was enough to convince the clerk at the first DMV I went to. Luckily there are more DMV’s, some of which even staff people who can think independently. The point is it’s a crapshoot.)

This is where my tale of frustration took an unexpected turn. The woman who looked at my paperwork actually listened and immediately understood the problem. They put me on the express hearing line (express?! I didn’t even know there was such a thing. I’m going to find it hard to wait in the normal line now). The judge who had previously heard my case clarified the situation, took complete responsibility and apologized profusely at least a dozen times (no exaggeration) in the five minutes (probably less) I was in with him. It was probably the most human experience I have ever had in a government building.

I say all this because I hate bureaucracy (in case you couldn’t tell). One of my biggest fears is how it can creep into our church. We say each person is God’s beloved child, and then we treat them like a number on a list on a form in a drawer (and it’s been misfiled). Days like today can be such important reminders to me that so often the message is not in our words, but in the way we treat others.