Government Efficiency: An Oxymoron?

I'm usually not one to complain about the government like some people I know. However, I have been directly involved in a situation that can, at this point, best be described as comical (as well as rather annoying). I won't describe the specifics here, for numerous reasons, but let's just say that for work-related purposes, I needed one government agency to send some paperwork to another. Let's call them Agency A and Agency B. Now, Agency A completed said paperwork back in December. At that point, all they needed to do was send the completed paperwork to Agency B. I'm not sure if this is done electronically, but that's what I suspect. Fast forward to the end of the story, and I can tell you that it took Agency A exactly five months to send the completed paperwork over to Agency B. I can't stress enough the fact that the paperwork was complete in December; all they had to do was send it along and it took five months. During this time, I was told that, after a few months of waiting, Agency B actually requested that Agency A send them the paperwork. I checked back on that a few weeks later and found out that Agency B had only "requested to request" the paperwork and did not really "officially request" it. That took another month. Now, I know things take time, but in five months my son could have crawled from our house to Agency A, had someone strap the paperwork to his back, and crawled it down to Agency B! There must be a better way...

Cinco de Mayo!

Tonight I won't be celebrating Mexico's victory over the French, but I will be celebrating the end of the spring semester! Sure, I'll only have about four weeks off until the summer semester begins, but I have decided to cut back to one class per semester from now on. Taking two classes wasn't too bad, but I've been getting busier at work, so things got pretty hectic toward the end. Plus, with all the running we do, it will be nice to have a few extra hours at home each week. Anyway, two classes down, eight to go, and I'll have degree number three under my belt. Will I be smart enough to take a permanent break from school afterward? Probably not. But, only time will tell.