A w-9 is required anytime there is a check more than $600—it is stupid but it is a way the government tries to track every cent
Ah, this reminds me of the hoops we had to jump through when we were finishing up a tour at Naval Station, Rota, Spain, and wanted to bring our 3 pet cats back to the states.
Although they already had rabies shots and certificates, the fact that they were issued by an American vet invalidated them. So we had to go to another city to a Spanish vet who would vaccinate them and give them new certificates. The Spanish certificates, however, had to be dated at least a month before our departure. The vets were nice enough to place a suitable date on the certificates.
We also had to have health certificates and a variety of stamps from various offices. This all had to take place in another, further, city. One of the stamps had to be acquired in a bar. (Heaven only knows why official Spanish government business had to take place in a bar.) During our overnight stay in the city, the bar was never open, so we did not get that particular stamp.
On to the airport, where, thanks to a series of unforeseen events beyond our control, we were trying to board a flight on a different airline than originally planned, and we were late for it, so the plane was being held up at the gate for us. We were trying to run—with our infant son—to the gate. We were stopped by a La Guardia Civil officer, who took our cat paperwork and examined it. He was about to prevent us from going, while we were bouncing around nervously, afraid of missing our flight. Finally, he saw where we were trying to export cats, and said “Ah, gatos!” and let us through.
In New York, the customs officials didn’t even care that we were bringing cats into the country. At least back in the 1980s, one could freely import cats...
Me: But...but... but...You know my address. You have my address. You sent this letter to me at my address, referencing a job completed at this address.
Her: But we need confirmation.
Me: (Dumbstruck) So ... how about I hereby confirm it.
LOL!!!
I can beat that easily.
I worked for the local county govt. once.
We had a guy whose job it was to:
1) print the monthly reports
2) stack them in boxes.
3) take last months monthly reports to the shredder.
4) take the shredded reports to the incinerator.
5) repeat at (1) next month.
No one ever looked at these reports.
No one knew what was in them because he was not allowed to let anyone see them citing confidentiality rules.
(he was later busted for a $60,000 a year crack habit- but he KEPT HIS JOB)
He had no idea how to develop software. He called a meeting once to have the entire team debug a problem he was having for 3 weeks that he could not fix.
It turned out he was writing 100 characters into a space allocated for 80 - it took me 30 seconds to spot.
I needed an interface module he was working on- he spent 6 months on it and it still was not working- I finally wrote it myself in 3 hours. The did not use mine- they let him continue to work on it for 3 more months- he eventually stole mine and presented it as his.
He spent $50,000 of the end of the year “use it or lose it” budget spending spree on a 50 Meg disk array storage drive. It sat there for 3 years because no one could figure out how to turn it on.
When they finally did, you could buy 200 meg hard drives for $120. It is probably still sitting there - it is the size of a large microwave oven.
They admitted we were basically funding their XML interface programming so they could market themselves as having one. THERE WAS NO WAY TO RETURN MONEY *EVER* so they gave us free hours of tech support instead. (to move the 5 minutes of data from one table to another)
He spent every day running his private accounting business behind closed doors in his office. He had customers meet him in there.
It's not just in bureaucracies that government doesn't work. even if there is saintly super smart teacher in the government schools he/she can't teach the students to read or to learn anything of value. Government must be limited to only a very few functions at the federal , state, and local level. Government should never be involved in the economy , nor education , nor healthcare nor hardly anything, just military , border control, international issues and just to block the use of force by individuals or groups and to protect property rights. so only a few laws should be enforce by governments, “no murder” , no stealing , no trespassing , no assault. contracts and patents part and property rights disputes settled between parties in a court of law. So the only laws government should be allowed to write about is those that prevent the use of force , and those dealing with international issues, military, border control and that's it what i listed here. I don't see how the free market cannot do everything else people might need , to trade to , work , etc.
I might be able to top this.
I took my 17-year-old son to the DMV to get a state-issued ID. After standing in line for hours, I got to the clerk - a sow of a Somali woman — who told me — through an interpreter since she could not speak or understand English — that she could not issue a state-endorsed photo ID unless I could present a state-endorsed ID with a photo on it.
I failed to convince Amamdoulo Mahabuffalo (or whatever her name was) that my son was a legitimate US citzen.
Great story. And Spain is not the only bureaucratic spaghetti maze. I am sure most of Europe, if not all, is that way.
They know exactly what they not do