Incompetency and Fear: A Dangerous Combination

I spend a fair amount of time each day I'm at work lamenting how incompetent and inefficient other government employees are (bear in mind that doesn't include most of the people here at the DA's office on my floor, they're all really well put together, but everyone else in the machine...), today I got a taste of how the other side lives. I rely on Courthouse employees and other various government institutions to do my job. When they're slow, or inept, it just frustrates me, it's never really harming me or causing me any lasting damage.

Today one of the Courtroom clerks called in sick, and since I'm such a super-duper employee, I was nominated to go sit in the Courthouse all day and fill in. This is not the first time this has happened, but it is very rare, and very much not pleasant for me. The clerk who sits in the room itself has a very specialized job. It is so specialized that one of two things is true; either a)she is the only one who knows exactly what she does and she is so efficient that no one ever sees her do it, or b) she doesn't really do a whole lot. I'm willing to bet the truth is a mix of these, she does have some specialized job that no one else but her really knows/understands, but she also manages to spend a lot of time not really doing a whole lot except talking to her friends on the phone.

Anyway, so I'm heading over to Courtroom X. There are a ton of Courtrooms in Criminal Court, each one with a specific name for a specific type of case, or some other identifying factor. While I was walking into Courtroom X a man jumped in front of me and said,

Hey man, do you work for legal aid?

No, I'm sorry, I work for the District Attorney's Office. But I'm not a lawyer, I'm just on staff.

Well can I ask you a question?

Sure, but there's a very good chance I'm not going to know the answer to it, if that is the case I will refer you to someone who does.

Am i supposed to be in this Courtroom today?

This question took me a little bit by surprise. How could he really expect anyone besides himself to know the answer to this question, and how could he really not know where he was supposed to be? But there were options...

Let's check the docket list on the door and see if your name is on there.

*********

No, you're not in this room sir, I'm sorry.

At this point I'm hoping our conversation is over, but I know better. There is no way he is going to leave it at that. He has found someone who has actually taken the time to listen to him, that has shown the tiniest bit of interest in aiding him, he wouldn't care if it was the cop who arrested him, he's going to get the most he possibly can from anyone who's actually willing to help him.

Do you know where I'm supposed to be?

Not off the top of my head, but if you head to the main information office, they will tell you exactly where you need to be. Do you have your subpoena or any other papers sent to you?

Yeah, but I went there and they wouldn't help me.

To say that I was incredulous would be an understatement. They wouldn't help him? Seems unlikely considering their sole function is to do exactly that. I was kinda early, the information room was only 1 floor down, and I wanted to show this guy that he was being unreasonable so I offered to take him back down there and show him how to find out from the information desk workers.

We went down and I instructed him to stand at the back of the line (only about 10 people long, which is really lite for the morning). I could've just walked to the front, flashed a badge, and gotten whatever I wanted, but I felt that that would be unfair to all the other people waiting. I then overheard a conversation between the clerk and some other schmuck asking the same question as my guy. The clerk just said "Sorry, I can't help you, you should've figured out what room you were in before you came this morning. Good luck." I was in shock. This woman's sole job in the world is basically to tell people what Courtroom they need to go to and she was flat out refusing to do it. Essentially she is now being paid to obstruct justice. I figured there must be some mitigating circumstance which prevented her from being able to tell him that he surely must've known beforehand.

The next man was treated the exact same way, it was a 15 second conversation, then the clerk sitting there just dismissed him without even attempting to help him.

I decided to see if I would have more luck than these poor defendants. I used my badge to get behind the counter and went up to the clerk just as she was dismissing yet another unfortunate, lost, confused defendant. I asked,

Hey, I'm sorry to bother you ma'am, but could you help me look up what Courtroom a certain defendant is in today?

What is the name?

First Name - Last Name.

I watched as she basically just looked at the screen without even maximizing the program that keeps track of Courtrooms and Defendants. Then I realized the program wasn't even open. I've seen it used once or twice while walking by and I know what it looks like. It was nowhere to be seen.

I'm sorry, I don't have any record of that defendant in Criminal Court today.

I am not joking when I say that I nearly shat myself. I barely got out an, Are you sure?

She nodded in affirmation and I told her that we needed to have a quiet word where the other people in line wouldn't hear us. I told her that I knew she had no idea how to do her job, but assumed that she was very new and that no one had simply explained how to use the program and rather than ask, she had stupidly tried to cover up her naivety by just turning everyone down. I told her that I hoped this had not been going on very long, and was sure that it could not have without someone noticing but since no one had ever done anything about it, it must be a relatively recent and easily rectifiable problem. The program was sitting on the desktop, we opened it, after a few seconds of trial and error we figured out the insanely easy process for figuring out what Courtroom each defendant was responsible for.

Once again, my inquisitive nature took over and I took it one step farther than I should've. If I'd just told this guy what room he was supposed to be in and left it at that, I would've left feeling pretty satisfied. I had done my good deed for the day and could just get on with it. But I decided to locate one of the supervisors and find out how long this woman had been working the desk by herself.

6 weeks. I shit you not.

This is the most offensive display of government inadequacy I have seen yet. In that whole 6 week period, I'm willing to wager that not a single person was helped. No wonder I've got a stack of bench warranted files on my desk. Defendant's aren't showing up to Court because they're being told they aren't on for that day. It is simply mind boggling that in that whole information office, which consists of probably 15 people, no one noticed in 6 weeks that this woman was turning everyone away, and that she never once asked what she was supposed to be doing.

So the moral of the story is that government inefficiency is a frustrating little mosquito bite in my life fairly frequently, however for those people who are relying on it in order to get their life in gear, it will totally drop you off in the wilderness without your shotgun, knife, compass, Doritos, or ipod.

I am probably also one out of maybe 3 people in the Courthouse at that time who would've been willing to help this guy to the point that I wouldn't leave till he found out where he needed to be. I definitely wasn't the first person he'd asked. Probably not even one of the first five.

At least I know if I ever get a brain-damaging blow to the cranium I can still get a job that directly influences the quality of life for masses of people. Knowledge is power my friends.