What a day!

It is quite amazing how the government body called the INS keeps us guessing. They are true example of what customer service should not be like. Way back in Feb this year, we knew from one INS window that our fingerprints were outdated and the processing was halted till we updated it. I was told to call the fingerprinting office for an appointment. The lady who answered the phone apparently had a bad day and she told me "You don't call us, we call you". I was just wondering what would happen if we said that to our clients?

Today was our lucky day to go back for our fingrprinting. There was a bunch of people before us. The gatekeeper (like St.Peter at the gates of Heaven) looked neutral, not like the usual gruff persons I have earlier met. He even cracked a joke violating their code-of-ethics of being rude, morose and robot-like. I was bewildered. I saw another lady standing in the corner waiting to answer questions visitors had and she even had a smiling face! Things kept getting stranger and I began to doubt if we were in the right place.

Inside there was a lady struggling with her two kids who were barely in her control. They were screaming, crawling and sometime jumping up and down. Except for their intrusion, the place was quiet and uneventful. The lady at the counter seemed like a grouch and obviously had enough of the nonsense and screamed at the poor Mother to be seated. By now, I began to be confident we were where we were supposed to be. I thought, there goes....

But then...The line moved faster than I have ever seen in any govermental office. The lady at the counter exchanged pleasantaries and we were quickly ushered to record our fingerprints. Upon completion the recorder even called out for QA to come on over and ensure all records and information was accurate. Surprise after surprise, thigs went on so smoothly, much better than I had ever expected. What a day! I was inspired to cheerfully write about my experience.