I set up an appointment to register for my New York City ID card today at the midtown Bryant Park library, and with me, I brought my passport for photo ID and my W2 as proof of residence. Well, the entire visit ended up becoming a total snafu (for those of you who aren’t aware, SNAFU is one of my favorite acronyms, and it stands for “situation normal: all f*cked up”).

First, the W2 was not considered a valid proof of residence “because tax season has ended.” Wait, so if I brought the W2 on April 10 vs. today, it would have counted? The W2 is clearly for earnings in 2015, so if her logic made any sense, wouldn’t that just eliminate the W2 completely as a proof of residence in 2016?

Then, because my W2 didn’t count, I had to access a computer to print out a bank statement with my mailing address. But I didn’t have my library card, so I had to request my card number from an employee. The employee was slow, hard of hearing, and barely knew how to obtain my library card number. He gave me a reservation for a computer, which timed out and prevented me from logging in. Another worker sympathized and gave me a guest code. The guest code did not work. She gave me a second one. The system timed out.

Finally, I got another guest computer code to work, but now, the printer payment method didn’t recognize my credit card and insisted I did not provide sufficient payment for my print job. I was in hell. The printer payment machine needed to be reset. Finally, I printed all three pages of my bank statement, presented it along with my passport to the NYC ID workers, and was given the form to fill out. Then, it got processed, and I was told it would take 2-3 weeks to arrive.

The entire process took over an hour. This is why government systems are terrible.

On the bright side, now,  with this card, I can get one-year free annual membership to places like the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, all the botanical gardens, the Public Theater, and even Lincoln Center and NYC Ballet. Who would have thought so much trouble would go into getting this single ID card.