Immigration Irritation

I am seriously gonna rant today. Oh boy do I have complains.

First up, I took leave off today to devote my time to finally go renew my passport at the Subang Immigration Department. And thinking that the government finally improved its systems to make passport renewal more efficient, I thought I could get in and get out by noon, then run around doing my own other stuffs wth.

Wait, does coming back home and taking a nap considered other stuffs??

Nebermind dat.

Well, I left my house "bright and early" at 8am, headed for the Immigration Department. I made sure I brought the essential things I need to ensure I survive the time stalling there.I packed my PSP, recharged my phone, made sure I had my IC, plastered my hair down like a jackass and made sure I had the RM300 to pay for the renewal. I then happily left my house and flew down to the Immigration Department so fast, I broke my personal speed record on that stretch. I happily turned towards the entrance of the parking lot only to discover one thing.

My passport was still at home, happily sitting on my bed's side table, laughing its ass off at me.

Then I broke another personal speed record, only this time was for my journey back home to passport-nap my old passport from my table. I gagged its mouth, tied it to a chair, whipped it with a metal rod.....................

Oops, sorry, wrong story.

Anyway, then I went all the way back again. After obtaining a parking spot, I immediately waltzed into the Immigration office to begin a gruelling task: renew my passport and get the eff out of there.

So I walked over to the booth to get my IC photocopied and then lined up to have my Heaven forbade passport photo taken. There was a whole Malay village....I mean, family in front of me waiting to get their photos taken as well, They had a problem with one of their young daughters who kept crying when asked to go into the photo booth. I wanted to shout "Oi, just shove her into the booth and click snap only lah." But seeing that I am a *cough*considerate*cough* citizen, I just stood there quietly watching. After that, I headed over to the Immigration kiosk.

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For those of you who're just renewing your passport, you can head over to the kiosk with one(1) passport photo, your photocopied IC, your original IC, your previous CHIPPED passport (meaning the slightly new ones which has digital encoding), your thumb, your RM300 and after that, your ass out the door. It's that simple!!!

Ahem. As I was saying, I headed over there, waited for about 10 minutes for my turn and nicely put all my documents in proper order, all the while telling myself "Cool, this is over pretty quick. Just wait for about 2 hours, collect the damn thing and I can be on my way home"

Then comes my turn. I followed all the instructions of the guiding officer there and placed my passport and IC to be scanned by the computer for verification. Something caught me by surprise.

MY BLOODY PASSPORT AND MY I.C. INFO DO NOT....I REPEAT, DO NOT BLOODY EFFIN' MATCH!!!

And the computer's nice advise is to proceed to the counters instead wtf. Can't that bloody machine, like, go www and search my info from its database??

So I went over to counter 1 and lined for 20 minutes to get a form to fill up. They provided me with a waiting number. At that point of time, the running number is at 1109. My ticket was for dumbass #1275. THAT'S A BLOODY 166 DUMBASSES AWAY!!!

Fine. I kept my cool and prayed that the idiots work extra hard to speed up the processes. But that did not keep them from delaying my time for another few hours. I got the number at 11.10am and it was FINALLY called at 3.30pm. Such a great way to spend time off from the office. I left the Immigration Department at around 3.50pm after making payments and what bloody nots.

If you renew your passport and made payments by 3pm, your passport can be ready by the evening. Not applicable for first timers.

I had such a good time staring at the numbers running, people walking around, me walking around and my PSP to help me kill time.

NOT!!

It practically bloody wasted a whole day just being there. They still need to improve on efficiency although the ol' tin can kiosk is a small step towards that. But the whole hassle of going through the counters is still frustrating and irritating. One lady who sat next to me when I was waiting for payments expressed, and I quote "Can die standing in here." Now, there's only one question in my mind:

WHY THE HECK WOULDN'T MY I.C. AND PASSPORT INFO TALLY???

They better not screw it up again the next time around or I'll shove that kiosk machine up their arse.

Rant complete. kthxbai.