Monterrey
is the industrial and financial center of the north. It is a large metropolitan area with nearly
10 million people in the city and surrounding communities. People are taught to be entrepreneurs from
the moment of birth and the work ethic is unmatched anywhere in the world. The motto seems to be "let's do
business." It is a very efficient
city, everybody follow the rules (more-less) and things get done - except when
it comes to correcting a birth certificate!
Business in Monterrey runs on rules (both written and unwritten) and
there are procedures for everything, the U.S. army could learn a few things
from here.
Some
years ago, the municipal authorities decided that all city records would be
digitized to make the running of city government (and serving the public) the
most efficient it could be. Sure enough,
when I went to the new hall of records, a tall beautiful building built near
the grounds of an old foundry, I was amazed at the efficiency of the
system. Here I am, a person who was born
at home, lived on the farm at the edge of what is now the city boundaries when
I was young, lived outside the country for almost sixty years, walk into the
building to get a copy of my birth certificate, obtain a certified copy and be
out the front door in less than three minutes.
Now that is efficiency!
Unfortunately,
the certificate had me being born in 1946 instead of 1947. I went back in there indicating the
mistake. "No mistake Señor," and they proceeded to show me printout of
digital copies of the original records of 1947.
Sure enough, there was the problem.
It seems that whoever was the clerk at the records office on March 26,
1947 - two days after I was born, took the statement of my birth from my father
and very neatly wrote it down in flowery terms probably to impress himself and
impress everybody around him. Instead of
writing born on March 24 of the current year he wrote (roughly translated) "born
on March 24 of next year's past year."
Why he would write the year that way?
My only guess is that he might have been charging for the number of
words he used. Nonetheless, sixty some
years later when records were being digitized, some poor data entry person of
the contractor that was probably hired to read and digitize these records,
probably a local college student, probably didn't know what to think. I can just picture the discussion on what the
hell this meant. Some supervisor,
probably decided that it was not worth the delay in data entry and told the
college kid to just put the "previous year" or 1946.
Where
does that leave me sixty nine years later?
"Well Señor, in order to correct this you will have to go to the
Office of Corrections and have them petition to change the official date."
The clerk told me. "But it is clearly a mistake," I
told him, "can't you just make that change here?" "No Señor, this is an official record
and changes have to be petitioned to the court and the judge has the final
say."
Off to
the Office of Corrections that was in a building in the center of the city near
the courthouse. The "Triage"
center is a large hall with 13 cubical offices where the clerks determined if
you case had the right supporting information and merited further review. I chose a number "203" and they
were attending number 158. Hey with 13
clerks, how long of a wait could it be, its only 45 numbers. Well….. I have concluded that all bureaucrats
in the world come from the same mold.
They all have three simple objectives:
1- Avoid making decisions; 2- Protect
your ass; and 3- Annoy the living shit
out of the client. The clerk I got was a
beautiful young lady and was obviously a bureaucrat in training because not
only did she do 1 and 2 extremely well, she excel at number 3. "Well you seem to have the proper
information and your request seems to be valid," she said, so I will send
your case to the lawyers upstairs and they will do the formal interview in preparation
for your case." So off I go to
another waiting area. Half an hour later
a person comes in to escort me to the fourth floor to where the lawyers
reside. The reason I need an escort is
that the elevators on this side of the building are being repaired and we have
to go to the other side of the building to use those elevators. My guess for having an "escort" is
that they don't want angry frustrated clients walking around the building by themselves
- I guess it's a way to avoid another Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
In order
to get to the other elevators we have to go outside the building. If you want to shock your body, go from a
climate controlled 78 degree office to a humid 104 degree sidewalk. It was only a short walk but just long enough
to start me sweating - "just another part of this bureaucratic torture
chamber," I said to myself,
"they are trying to get me to give up my case." We arrive at the waiting area in the 4th
floor and 40 minutes later I was escorted to very good looking lawyer sitting
very business-like behind her desk. "I'm
sorry to tell you that I cannot present your petition to the Court because I am certain
that the judge will not accept it."
She started the conversation on a negative note. "What is the problem," I said.
"First, the copy of the official 1947 record of your registration
has to be certified. You have to go back
to the Hall of Records and obtain a certified copy." She said.
"Second, " she continued,
"the judge does not read English, so your passport, your driver's license
and any other document in English will have to be officially translated, and
the only official translating source is the department of Philosophy and
Letters at the State University (the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon)." "Would they accept a translation from
the Mexican consulate in Detroit?"
I said. They would, she indicated,
but I would have to pay the translation handling fee.
"Well,"
I said, "I am here this week and I can have them translated and bring them
in next week when I get back from Mexico City." "I'm sorry," she said but his whole
office and the court close down this Thursday for vacation and will reopen on
July 25th. So even if you could bring
them in this week, your case will not be submitted to the court until after the
25th. After then it could take up to
five weeks to hear your case." She continued.
Well, I
thought to myself, there goes one of my objectives of this trip - to get my
birth certificate corrected. Bureaucracy trumps efficiency everywhere! At least the family information gathering is
going well.
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