surprising service

[cellio]

The passport folks bounced my application because they didn't like my vintage 1960s birth certificate (stamped and signed but not embossed). So I sent off for a fresh copy.

A few weeks after I mailed the application I got a postcard telling me that I should expect it to take six weeks. Five days later I received the birth certificate, which is now on its way to the passport folks for round two.

Granted, I did write the certificate number at the bottom of the application (I had the information, after all, so it couldn't hurt), but still, this is much better response than I would have expected out of any bureaucracy, let alone a large county in a large state. I'm impressed.

Comments

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

vintage 1960s birth certificate
Vintage. That makes me feel so much better than old.
(I swear, my birth certificate looks like somebody just typed it up on scrap paper in a decrepit old ribbon type writer; nothing on it even hints at "official document" status. I'd hate to think what the passport folks would think of it now, now that my original passport has expired.)

[cellio]

Mine also has that typewriter-in-need-of-recalibration look, but it's at least typed on official paper. And it has a purple ink seal next to some text that says (approximately) "this is official if stamped in purple", but I guess they didn't predict color photocopiers. The new one is on (fancier) formal paper and embossed -- but it's the same old typewritten original, just copied onto different paper. I guess I'd just assumed that by now all of the data was in a database and they'd print it fresh as needed.