Social Security

(originally posted Dec 21, 2008 on payitforward21days.blogspot.com)
I got married back in May, and it's taken me forever to get my name changed in all the places I need. Who knew there could be such an obstacle course of red tape and bullshit. Anyway, I had to go to my local SSA office to file the paper work to get my name changed on my social security card. This is a pretty important place to a lot of people, so I think it would be nice if the location were more clearly marked to begin. I was aiming to be there right at 9am when they open, but I missed the building and had to back track to find it. What a sad place.

If it's not bad enough that you have to take a number and wait for Lord knows how long, they could cheer the place up a bit, ya know? washed out pale blue/gray walls do not inspire happiness. When you walk in, you have to use a touch screen monitor to choose the purpose of your visit and take a number. There is a "guard" there, but I wouldn't put much stock in him keeping anything from happening, except maybe someone from smiling. What a grump, but I'd probably be too if I had his job. So I take my number and sit down.

A bit later, I hear the grump telling someone they have to sign in on the touch screen to get a number. When I turn around I see an elderly black couple standing inside the door. The man is obviously blind, and the woman has glasses. She's trying to walk up to the front to get help when the grump stops her. She doesn't lose her cool as she tells him she can't see that touch screen because she has cataracts. Instead of helping the couple or at least showing some compassion, the grump calls over his radio for someone to come help these people that can't see.

Chance to pay it forward! I immediately hopped up and told the lady, I'd read the screen to her if she didn't mind telling me which reason she was at the office. Hers was at the bottom of the screen of course, but she was so grateful to have someone help her. I gave them their ticket and told them several times the number to listen for: C400. They repeated it, and she tried to look at the ticket. I could have cried watching her hold that piece of paper an inch from her glasses trying to make out the letters and numbers. She still couldn't see it, but they told me they remembered.

Amazingly at this point, the grump decided to be helpful and said in a more gentle tone, that someone would call their name from the door which I then pointed out to them. A little later they were trying to remember their number again, so I took a pen out of my purse and wrote the number in large letters for her on the top of her ticket. "Oh, that's perfect. I can see that!" I just smiled.

I am a fully capable, intelligent adult. College educated and world traveled. I got lost going to the SSA office! The couple I helped somehow, and Lord only knows by what will they did it, got to that office -- one of them blind, the other legally blind, him with a cane and neither moving very easily! I am continually amazed at the resiliency of the human body, mind and spirit.

I was trying to help the elderly couple, pay it forward, but that only counts if you're not getting something in return, and those 2 strangers gave me one hell of a lesson in life. Even when the lady at the counter asked me for ID in my OLD name, which I no longer have because changing my name has been the whole point of the hoops I've been jumping though, I just smiled, showed her the myriad identification documents I did have and asked kindly what our other solutions were. I didn't get upset at the inanity of the request. The elderly couple had been called to the back, and I could see them from my window. I was patient as the woman helping me went to clarify with a supervisor that in fact I did not need ID in my old name.

I was there a grand total of less than an hour. It was easier than the DMV. I've been frustrated, impatient and generally angry and a grump myself lately. I've gotten caught up in the things that aren't going right in my life. OK, so that's 99% my job. I've always believed that people come into and out of our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Sometimes those "people" are angels passing by to help get us back on the right track.

I met of them on Tuesday at the Social Security Administration office in Alexandria, VA.