bureaucracyYesterday, my daughter applied for her first passport at the local passport office. I was a bit nervous going in the middle of the day, between two conference calls, to get her a passport, but I came prepared.

I arrived at the passport office, meeting my wife and daughter there. We parked in the spots nearest to the passport office entry way (which is behind the building). We walked in, and we were next in line. As soon as we walk in, we look around and spot someone coming over. She asks if she can help us. I sigh in relief, that we were being taken care of right away. I explain the the lady that we want a passport for our daughter. She quickly asks, if we have all the paper work, assuming we don't - but I said we do.

She was then quick to ask us to come over. Then with a smirk, she asked for the passport application. I handed it to her immediately, all filled out via the dynamic PDF, so it is easy to read, cause it came from the computer. She then asked if we had a birth certificate - I said, I have five copies, how many you need and handed her one. She then asked us for IDs, which we both handed to her within seconds. Then she asked if we had a picture, I said no - but we would like to pay you to take the picture for us.

She takes out this huge old Polaroid camera and has us place our daughter on a wall and position her head so she is looking up and into the camera. It was a pretty cute thing to watch.

Then we write two checks, one for the passport application and the other for the picture. Then my wife and I sign the passport application and we are done. The whole process took less than 10 minutes, not including 15 minute drive time to and from.

I like to come prepared and know what to expect prior to going to any engagement, especially government offices. Between being really efficient with the government worker and our baby being really cute, we even got the government worker to smile at us (something you rarely find in these offices).

I also am proud to say that I efficiently (even though 5 different offices were required) merged my property lots into a single lot, which should help with my property tax issues with mortgage company.