On the outside, I try to project an image of having it all together. But underneath that, I'm kind of a disaster. Hence... the name of the site: GlossyVeneer. Part of the process of dealing with my car stereo being stolen was getting a copy of the police report. I need this for insurance purposes and I was told by the responding officer that I could just visit the station and obtain a copy of the report. Silly me, I interpreted his statement to mean it would be a quick simple trip to the police station where they would photocopy the report, hand it to me and I could leave.
Silly, Silly, Naive Girl!
Here’s what really happened:
I walked into the police station and walked up to the main receptionist’s window. Some girl came up to the window and kind of raised her eyebrows at me. I guess that was her way of asking, “May I help you?”
I told her, “My car was broken into and I need to get a copy of the report.”
Her response was, “Hang on. I need to get you a packet.” She walked into a back room and handed me a thick packet and said, “Take this and sit over there. Someone will come talk to you soon.”
I looked at the packet I was holding. It was titled ‘Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft’. I didn’t think anyone could steal my identity from my car stereo, but…. whatever. I’ll do what they said. I took a seat and shortly after a guy came in to the station, walked to the window and said, “I’m here to get an identity theft packet.”
The girl went and got one for him. Then she came into the waiting area and took my packet away. She said, “You don’t need this. They said someone was coming for this and I assumed it was you.” (Even though I specifically stated what I needed.) “You’re here about a car theft, right? Hang on…” She walked into the back office, leaving me in the waiting area.
After a few more minutes an officer came out and said, “You’re here to report a car theft, huh?”
“No, I’m here to get a copy of the report that was filed after someone broke into my car and stole the stereo.”
“You already filed a report? And you don’t have a copy of it?”
“No, my car was at the auto shop. They filed the report and I’m just here to get a copy of it.”
“Oh…. the receptionist can help you with that.” The cop goes back into the back offices, leaving me to think, ‘No, the receptionist can’t help with that if she doesn’t pay attention.’
But by now the receptionist finally understood what I needed. She went to the copier, made a copy of the report and came back to the window to tell me, “It’s just this one piece of paper. It costs $5.00.”
“I have to pay $5.00 for a copy of that?”
“Yes, anybody that wants copies of police records has to pay $5.00 plus a quarter for each additional page.”
“But it’s a report that pertains to my car.”
“Yep, you have to pay.”
So I reach into my purse to pull my wallet out and she stops me. “You can’t pay that here. You need to go across the way to the city offices and pay them. They’ll give you a receipt and you bring it back to me. When I have the receipt I’ll give you a copy of the report.”
So I walked over to the city offices and told the woman at the counter, “I need to pay $5.00 for a copy of a police report.”
First thing out of her mouth was, “Did you make a boo-boo?”
What exactly did she mean by that? Yes, I committed a crime and my bail (that I’m posting myself) is just $5.00. Or… it’s the world’s cheapest speeding ticket. But instead I told her, “No, someone else made a boo-boo and threw a rock through my car window and stole the stereo.”
“I have a really old car. I bet nobody would want anything to do with my car.”
“That’s what I thought about my car.”
“Well, you youngsters these days buy fancy cars. Let me write out this receipt for you. What’s your name?” And then she proceeds to pull out a paper receipt book and a calligraphy pen. A CALLIGRAPHY PEN! It took her nearly a minute and a half just to write JILL on the paper. I was tempted to tell her that I was like Cher or Madonna and I only had one name just to get this over with, but I had to wait as she wrote my entire name out… all three names on this stupid paper receipt. I wanted to tell her it would be quicker if she had a Word or Excel template for that, but I didn’t want a “youngsters with fancy computers” lecture.
After I got my receipt I went back to the Police Station and gave the receipt to the receptionist and she handed the one-page police report to me like she was the most efficient person that ever lived and told me to have a nice day.
It kind of made me wonder about the state of the city if these are the types of employees that are hired to serve and protect.
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