Social (In)Security

I made sure I got there early. I tugged the latch at the door to see if it would open, but it was still locked. A man in dungarees and work boots holding some papers in his rough hands pointed to the business hours printed on the door, said something to me in Spanish, and gave a weary shrug. I located a nice bit of wall to lean against and pulled out a book. Two other men were also waiting, both of whom appeared to be in their 60s, scruffy gray-bearded white guys whose lives had clearly been no crystal staircase. They too had documents in hand and were talking loudly in the corridor as they waited.

"They just change this shit without notifying you," said one. "You gotta find out the hard way. And it's one thing when you got a car, but I got no car, man. I'm on my feet. Hopefully this is the last time I gotta come down here."

"I'm gonna move up north," said the other. "Some little town outside Sacramento. Might be easier to get things done up there.""I'd like to move," replied the first guy. "But right now I got no sleeping bag. I left it in the shelter and they wouldn't give it back to me. And my wallet is gone. Can't even buy a wallet in this town."

"Have you tried the Dollar Store?" said the first.I tried to immerse myself in my book, but I was getting that feeling where I want to cry for everybody, not that it would help. There are so many people who are barely hanging on, even here in this storybook town by the sea.I have always felt it would be very easy to fall between the cracks, to find oneself alone and homeless.

My husband used to scoff when I expressed this out loud. You'd find a job and figure things out, he would say. You have an education, you don't have substance abuse issues, you can navigate socially and you've never been that close to the edge.

But there is an unsettling randomness about life, a definite element of luck. I grew up with people who struggled all their lives for rewards that never came.

As is often the case, my thoughts turned to my brother Eddie, a man of kindness, intelligence, and integrity, who was dealt a stack of cruel cards through no fault of his own. He too spent some time on the streets and at the mercy of strangers and social service agencies. As for me, I was a healthy baby born between two siblings who entered life with congenital kidney disease. In other words, I learned early on that life is unfair, and when I see people going through hard times, I know it could be me.

But here we were all equal, standing in the hallway of a government office located in a shopping mall, waiting for the doors to open, and now a guard unlocked them and beckoned us in, one by one, each of us dispatched to a counter with windows behind which the Social Security agents were sitting. My agent was a very young man, pleasant and soft-spoken, who looked to be South Asian with black hair and dark skin.

I explained that I wanted to have access to my Social Security information online but every time I try to create an account, I am asked a series of questions that do not apply to me at all, and I suppose I keep giving the wrong response, because I then get a message telling me that my access has been denied and I can try again in twenty-four hours. He directed me to a computer nearby and asked me to replicate the process right there. In the meanwhile, he would be assisting another client, but I should feel free to call him over if I needed him.The same thing happened. The questions are about car loans and mortgages of which I have neither, and retail accounts at stores where I have never shopped.

This was a case for The Supervisor. She was beckoned forth from some secret office in the back and now loomed behind the glass window above the computer as I reiterated the situation

."Are you sure you didn't take out a loan on a car recently?" she asked.

"Of course I'm sure. I've never had a car loan in my life," I told her.

"And you don't have a mortgage loan with one of these companies? Are you sure about that?"

"Am I sure? Yes, I'm sure."

She seemed reluctant to believe that I possessed sound and credible knowledge of my own personal finances.

"Well, this is what the credit company is telling us," she said. "You're going to have to take this up with them."

"The credit company? Is this some entity with which you contract? Aren't you the federal office? Aren't you the guardian of my Social Security information?"

I won't bore you, dear reader, with a tedious script of the whole dialog that ensued. At one point the pleasant young man behind the window typed in a few keys and seemed on the cusp of unlocking my account for me and The Supervisor put her hand over the keyboard, shook her head, and put a stop to it. I was sent away with nothing but instructions to resolve the discrepancy with one of the three major credit agencies.

The uniformed guard who had ushered us in called me over and whispered,

"Fraud is rampant." He told me the names of the credit companies, and gave me some advice.

"I see this all the time," he said, which wasn't very comforting, but I appreciated his empathy and effort to help. He was clearly going beyond his job description.

I walked out into the brightness of a Santa Barbara morning. Most of the stores weren't even open yet but already there were young girls in their January shorts and flip-flops sipping their five-buck cups of lattes and mochas, and in-a-hurry working people talking on their cell phones as they strode down the street, and a guy on a bicycle nonchalantly pedaling along and singing to himself. Above it all, the mountains. Gosh, this is a pretty town.

The following day I dutifully obtained my credit report, which confirmed my own understanding of my credit and completely contradicted the information that the Social Security Administration appears to have been drawing upon when determining whether or not I can access my account from home. Reassured but pessimistic, I dialed the Social Security office. There was a forty-five minute wait, so I left my number for a call-back.

A man named David called me back an hour later, and he was clear-spoken and genuinely helpful. (Still amazed...right?) Turns out that once I established my identity, The Supervisor could have easily over-ridden the erroneous "security questions" and obtained an electronic access code for me. She could have given me that code, and I could then go home and create an online account. I have a right to see my own Social Security information after all, and in truth, it's helpful all around when people take care of things online rather than coming into the offices or generating more paper.

David suggested I go to a different branch, maybe Santa Maria, to obtain this code. "I wish I could do it for you from here," he said. "But I can't. You're going to have to make another in-person visit. What I don't understand is why the woman at your local office didn't do it."

I have tried to understand it also, and I've thought about it a lot, which is why it has become a blog post. I think it was a power trip, plain and simple. We all know there is a tendency for bureaucratic agencies, even at the local level, to de-humanize clients, to be brusque and un-seeing and move 'em through. That partition may be glass, but we are made to feel invisible, or certainly unimportant. If even a relatively privileged and capable woman such as myself leaves this office feeling jerked around, I can't imagine the cumulative experiences of folks like the guys who were waiting in the corridor with me that morning.

And what's the point of this? Only a plea for more heart and imagination in the dispatch of duties everywhere. The goal is to solve problems, not to get people out of your hair. Those people are the reason for the job.

And why include this post in a blog called "Still Amazed"? Because despite the general atmosphere of frustration and resignation I sensed in this Kafka-esque little outlet, I am amazed by the resilience and patience of those who were waiting, the insight and advice of those who tried to help, and the fact that this whole system exists at all.