Government Agencies

Recently I had to make a trip to a Government agency to sort out some matters. This is what I experienced:

Plus:

• Having a receptionist to find out what you want and press one of the many buttons there to guide you to the right counter.
• Having enough chairs to sit on.
• Having aircond and telly while you wait.
• Polite staff who did greet me with a smile. Looks like the campaign has worked! The days of surly Government staff are dead!

Minus:

• Whatever button the receptionist pressed didn't make much difference to me. The numbers weren't moving in sequence and until I left, I couldn't for my life figure out how the numbers were rotating!
• Screaming children running all over the place and crawling around on the dirty floor.
• At least 20+ counters out of which only half or less were open. They should go out for lunch earlier knowing that most people would come in during lunch to settle their matters.
• And my biggest rant - Having to wait for more than an hour just to submit my form and be thumb-printed for a simple change in personal details! Why can't we just be a little more technology savvy and allow changes to be made through the website?! After all, if people today conduct all sorts of transactions over the Internet, why still stick to the old-fashioned way of thumb-printing just for procedure's sake?!

I heard too that to register for tax e-filing this year means making a trip to the tax office. If I'm going to make a trip there, what's the point in me doing e-filing then?! *shakes head*