Government Bureacracy, FAIL

I had to fill out 50+ pages of personal information so that some unnamed government agency can investigate my life. Oh, if you’re even reading this then there’s probably a good possibility that you’ll be getting a personal visit from an agent from said agency within the next 6 months or so. So if some agent comes knocking on your door asking questions about me, try not to be too annoyed.

Anyway, back to my crankiness of the moment. I was filling in the information about my spouse and I had to provide place of birth. Well, that seemed pretty straight-forward, so I filled it in like so:
After submitting everything I got an email with “things to fix”. One is that I need to come up with contact information for the supervisors I had during my summer internships at Aetna like 5+ years ago. Yah, that was fun. After, like, forever, I managed to find a generic HR phone number. After forcing my way through to an operator (No! I’m neither a current employee nor retiree!), I was told I can send a fax to the Payroll Department (and I have a phone number!).

Sorry, got sidetracked there. The thing I need to fix which is pertinent to this post is:
In case you can’t read it, that says “Was your Spouse born in Puerto Rico? If so, please delete PR from the State and enter Puerto Rico in the Country field.”

So, despite the form having an option for “Puerto Rico” as a state, and saying not to put a country unless born outside the United States. I’m supposed to ignore that and instead list Puerto Rico as a country.

Well, I tried that. Now the System is yelling at me because if she wasn’t born in the “United States” then I must provide a Document Type and Document ID Number that proves she is a US Citizen. NewsFlash! Puerto Rico is part of the United States, that’s why it’s in the friggin’ drop-down box! GAH!

Ok, Fine. At least Jess’ birth certificate has some kind of ID Number on it. Oh wait! It has 5. An “Area Number”, a “Register Number”, a “Certificate Number”, in big huge bold font a “Birth Number”, and some unidentified 6-digit number stamped on the back in red ink. Well, they’re getting the “Certificate Number” so they better be happy with that, though I’ll bet that in 3 months I get a call asking about why they can’t find Jess’ proof of citizenship.

We’re not done with the idiocy yet though. In another section I’m supposed to: “List three people who know you well… whose combined association with you covers at least the last 7 years.” Ok, I can do that. APPARENTLY NOT! I was told that in order to fix that I need to “List 2 verifiers that have known you at least 7 years to present, with up to date information.” Completely conflicting information. Oh, and it can’t be anyone related to me in anyway, and I can’t have listed them anywhere else in this form already (my roommates, professors, landlords, etc). There is NOBODY that fulfills this requirement. Friends from high school won’t count because we haven’t been close friends in the past 6 years. No one from college will count since that tops out at 6 years, and I’ve already listed anyone of note as roommates. GAH!

If they’re so good at their jobs of investigating backgrounds, why am I doing all the work!