Bureaucracy at its finest

Soooo, in Saturday's mail I got Jackson social security card, and in a seperate mailing, I got the commemorative birth record from the hospital with his footprints, and with it was the form to get the official birth certificate from the state vital records department. I had heard lately that going to get a birth certificate in person was a process that takes several hours. But requesting it by mail says to allow up to four weeks. Daniel needs a copy to get Jackson listed as a dependant for military stuff, so I decided I was going to do it in person. When I mentioned to my mom my plans, she told me that she would go with me to watch Jackson while I took care of things. She was able to leave work a little early today, so we headed up there. When we walked in and I saw the line, I was glad she had come with me. It would have been a complete pain to have Jackson actually in that line with me. So, she took him and found a place to sit and wait, while I got in line. After waiting in said line for one hour and five minutes, it was finally my turn. I handed the girl the request form, which listed a place for Jackson's date of birth. She looked it over and told me she needed to check something. She starts looking on her computer, and after a few minutes she tells me he's not in the system yet. I asked what that means and she says "he's only three weeks old, you have to allow at least a month for us to have his information processed." So I asked why I had received the request form to get it if it wasn't actually available. She told me that was an issue I would need to ask the hospital since they sent it to me. I asked if I would have to wait in that hour plus long line again once it was ready, and she said yes. She made a comment about how I shouldn't have even tried since it hadn't been a month. I asked her where on the form or their website does it indicate that for a newborn a minimum of one month is the required wait time, because I sure hadn't seen it anywhere. Her answer to that? "Ma'am, that's just knowledge." Just knowledge? Whose knowledge? Certainly not mine as a first time mom. I have never before requested a birth certificate for a new baby, just how was I supposed to have this "knowledge"? Then she told me if I wanted to, I could go ahead and pay the fee today and have that be out of the way for when it is ready. Why? So when it is ready there's no record of my having paid? Ummmm, no, thank you. When I got home, I looked online and nowhere could I find anything that indicated it takes up to a month for newborn birth certificates. Nowhere. If that was something that was mentioned to me in the hospital, I sure as heck don't remember it, and I'm pretty sure it would have stood out to me, knowing Daniel needs it. Ugh...that office is crazy. It's a perfect example of how not to run things. There were 3 desks, but only two people working. And, for every 3-4 people one clerk helped, the other only helped one, because just about every person, she would have to stop and go ask a question of the other clerk. Their system is set up so that you wait in the line, and once you see a clerk, they scan a copy of your ID, and the request form. You are then given a number to go wait again. Once your number is called, you get the information, and then you proceed to another line to pay for your copies. When we got there, they were calling number 7. Once the girl told me Jackson wasn't in their system yet, and we were leaving, they were calling number 42. Had Jackson been in the system, I would have been given number 83. I can imagine how long it would have taken for them to get to 83. Since I left there,this one thought has gone through my head a couple of times...."This is an example of our tax dollars at work??!??!?" Ugh.