Still Waiting

My Hawaii State ID card will expire in a few months, five years after I received it. Through no basis other than my incurable optimism I expected the renewal process to take much less time than it took to get the original ID. My expectations were misplaced.

One can fill out the original or renewal form online, but one still has to show up in person, after making an appointment, to take pictures and present documents; filing online will cut the wait time to about 90 minutes. However, this avenue wasn't open to me, since the earliest appointment was in two weeks and I would be traveling in one week. [Aside: this is one of the biggest concerns about government-run health care--the cost is nominally low but everyone would be forced into long queues, though individuals may be willing to pay more to cut down the wait. Rightly or wrongly, people generalize from their experiences at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, the Post Office, the airport, or even at the Tax Collector and ask, why would government be more efficient this time?]

It may not look so bad, but there are another 30 people past the door.

I'll spare you the details, dear reader, and just say that I entered the line at 1 p.m. and left with my new ID card at 4:30. In a small sign of progress the ID card won't have to be renewed for eight years. (Watch for my follow-up post in 2019.)

After document inspection, another wait for the photo.