We zoom off to DOL when I discover my friend's car tabs expired in August. I mistakingly assume the Department of Licensing is where to obtain new tabs. Nope. The reluctant clerk only recommends I bring "S" to City Hall to pay the excise tax and then she can purchase the new tabs.
Mind you, this is NOT MY JOB, Man!
I am brilliant, finding a parking spot one block away from our revised destination. What luck! We jam into line as she’s fussing with her purse, asking me time and time again, what does she need for the licensing clerk, crumpling the car documents like wads of used tissue.
I place my purse next to me, in front of the desk clerk, to assist. The fee check is completed by me, though she signs in a scribble that no one’ll be able to decipher. I help her fill in the form, one line at a time, pointing to the appropriate place, and instructing her pen to move. The dashes ignored, numbers gather in the vicinity of the spot, letters a blur. They’ll get the gist.
Up a long flight of marble stairs, we make our way to the City Clerk for an Absentee Ballot.
Again, the lines on the simple form are impossible to maneuver so I point and repeat the information for my friend. My purse is again, placed to the right of me, and within spitting distance to the clerk.
After we arrive home, I realize my wallet is AWOL.
I hop on Google, and find several contacts for the One City Center, my first stop today. One number hosts the leasing agent, who turns me onto the information kiosk clerk. Did I leave my wallet in the Conference Room this morning? (I had not used it at City Hall.)
It took me EIGHT phone calls, only to be lead back to the original receptionist who now claims the security desk is occupied and CANNOT respond to my call.
A bank representative calls, in the meantime, and leaves a message to get back in touch with her. I call back and a guy tells me nothing seems to be awry with my accounts. Who called me? I have to hang up to listen to my VM, get the correct representative’s name and call again. That woman is with a client and will call back. An hour later, I phone again. Same guy tells me my phone is sitting in Room 208 at City Hall.
I race back to the scene of the crime. It was found in the restroom. The $300 cash I just received from a week’s worth of work with a new client is gone. Hard earned cash nabbed from my purse while getting a rumpled gold star for my errand with an incompetent friend.
Awesome.
What did you do to save the world today?