At the Government Office

I had an issue with my income tax return and decided the easiest way to deal with it would be to go to the Canada Services office. I knew there would be a wait, so I took a book—a wonderful one by Alan Doyle, entitled The Happy Land: All Around the Circle in my Newfoundland and Labrador.

When I got there, I found easy parking, and once inside the building, there was just one person ahead of me in the reception line. I got in behind him, leaving a respectful distance. Smooth sailing.

Well.

It turned out that the reception staffer was actually doing the whole consultation with the customer—not just taking his information and telling him to take a seat to wait for one of the proper consultants, who are sequestered behind partitions. Furthermore, she was taking her time. Possibly she had begun this when he was the only one in line.

She had to leave her station to do various things, like go to the photocopier and talk numerous times to other employees, and so forth. The customer, during one of these forays by the staffer, turned to apologize to me for the wait—nice Canadian that he was.

She had a longish discussion with him about getting a certified copy of the certificate he needed, as part of this whole palaver, and in the end they decided he would just take a couple of photocopies. Back she went to the photocopier.

Then, as she calmly chatted with him, she went to staple some papers together. Wouldn’t you know it—the stapler appeared to be out of staples! They had a laugh. She opened it, picked at it, shut it again, and tried to staple the papers. Another laugh. Yes, it really was out of staples! So she reached down under the kiosk desk, pulled out a cardboard box of staples, and began refilling the stapler. More laughing and visiting with the customer.

It suddenly struck me that I could have been reading my book this whole time, and I now got it out of my backpack. In the process, I realized that a lot of people had gathered behind me, squashed between the door and the lineup. I moved a little forward, as the number of people in line now made the space I had left behind the lead customer too generous. We all inched forward. I opened my book and began reading.

The customer ahead was trying to finish, but the staffer kept talking to him. Finally, he was able to tear himself loose, and with a smile and a nod to me, he headed for the door. I inched forward. After tidying her station, the staffer smiled to indicate that I could approach the glass-covered wicket. I shouted my problem to her through the glass.

Well, she said, unfortunately they could not help me. She gave me a printout with a phone number for the Canada Revenue Agency, while warning me that I could be waiting an excessively long time for them to take my call. She suggested I could go to the seniors’ centre, where there were currently people helping seniors with their tax returns. She said that would likely be faster than trying to phone the tax department. She would have kept talking to me, but I was acutely aware of the lineup behind me, so I dragged myself out of her clutches as fast as I could.

Here I want to say that this was clearly a very nice lady who, magically, was not affected by the urgency felt by the people lined up. This was not passive-aggressiveness—just unperturbed niceness.

Back to my car. I drove to the nearby seniors’ centre. There was the sign. Sure enough: income tax help from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It was now about 2:15 p.m. Surely they would still be hanging around. I went inside, found the room, and there were two elderly men sitting there chatting. I was in luck!

Not so. These were just two elderly men chatting. They confirmed that “they”—the tax helpers—had gone. Also, they told me, the tax helpers would not be in the next day, but the day after that would be good.

There was nothing more to say, but I did have to assert that it was surely a pain dealing with the government. Oh yes, we all agreed—a real pain.

In the end, several days later, I made an entry online that I hope will solve the problem. That’s all the time I have to spare over this for now. If the Canada Revenue Agency isn’t happy with this, I am sure they will contact me.