So, you hear “robbery,” and you think masks, guns, the whole nine yards, right? But lemme tell ya, sometimes the worst kind of robbery happens in broad daylight, with pens and paperwork, or just sheer incompetence. You don’t lose your wallet, but you sure as hell lose your time, your sanity, and sometimes a chunk of cash for absolutely nothing.
That Time in Toms River… Or Near Enough
This whole thing reminds me of an experience I had, not exactly a stick-up, but it felt like I was getting fleeced. I was trying to sort out a permit for a small thing, a shed or something, for my aunt who lives down that way. Figured it’d be a morning’s job. Go in, fill a form, pay a fee, done. Simple. Boy, was I wrong.
First off, getting the right form was like a damn scavenger hunt. The first person I talked to looked at me like I had three heads. “Shed permit? Uh, try window three.” Window three sends me to office B, down the hall. Office B says, “Oh no, you need form 7-stroke-Alpha, that’s online.” Great. Except their website looked like it was designed in 1998 and the link to form 7-stroke-Alpha led to a picture of a cat. Seriously. A cat.
So, back I go. Another line. This time, I get a different person. “Form 7-stroke-Alpha? We haven’t used that in years! You need the ‘Auxiliary Structure Declaration.’ But you can only get that from Mr. Henderson, and he’s only in on Tuesdays, between 10 and 10:15 AM, if the wind is blowing west.” Okay, maybe not that specific, but you get the idea. It felt like that.
- Wasted a whole morning.
- Got bounced around like a pinball.
- Nobody seemed to know what the actual process was.
I eventually got the paperwork, after what felt like an eternity and several more trips. Each trip, a different story, a new hurdle. One time, they told me the previous form I’d painstakingly filled out was an old version, even though I got it from them THE WEEK BEFORE. I almost lost it right there. I swear, they were just making it up as they went along. It was like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.
And the fees! Oh, the fees. A fee to submit, a fee to review, a fee because it was a Tuesday. I felt like I was being nickel-and-dimed to death. By the end of it, I’d spent more on gas and pointless fees, not to mention my lost time, than the damn shed was probably worth. That, my friends, is a robbery. No gun, no mask, just slow, soul-crushing bureaucracy designed to wear you down until you just pay up to make it stop.
Why Do I Even Bother?
You know why I get so worked up about this stuff? Because it’s everywhere. It’s not just one office, or one town. It’s this mindset that your time doesn’t matter. That they can just string you along, make things overly complicated, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re stuck. They’ve got you. They “rob” you of your patience, piece by piece.
It’s like some systems are just set up to be inefficient. Almost like they don’t want you to succeed. Or maybe they just don’t care. Either way, you’re the one paying the price. It’s not a “robbery” you see on the news, but it leaves you feeling just as violated sometimes. You just stand there thinking, “What the hell just happened?” and “How did this simple thing turn into such a goddamn mess?” Yeah, that’s the feeling. And it stinks.
