To think passport office staff have no heart or sense?

[lisad123]

Ok not all staff but some I met today.
Had appointment to get Dds passports today at 11am. I arrive early at 10.30am to no queue but told I'm not allowed to queue until 10.50am and to come back then. We come back at 10.50 to nice long queue which takes 30 to get though.
While standing waiting another family arrive with a teenager who clearly had disabilities but they are turned away for being too early as well. They ask of their son can use the disabled loo, and told no because they aren't allowed to queue and go though security checks. The guard could have easily let them in barrier, and then seen them into loo and out again without them causing any trouble, or any risk of harm. They are told to go elsewh
After we get to waiting area there is again no queue but again 10 mins before appointments, massive queue.
I felt very bad for the family who couldn't let their son use loo.
As for being set away, there is nowhere else in the building to sit.
Maybe I'm just grumpy after a long wait with my own two SN kids who aren't great at queues and waiting and crowded places, only to be told I didn't have to bring them with me as the lady on the phone told menu had to.

Yanbu

Of course they have no heart or sense; they're robots. At 5pm they're taken down to the basement to be recharged overnight ready to be put into service at 9am.

Either yourself or the other family could have asked for a manager to be called so that a complaint could be registered with a human supervisor. This has been known to lead to reprogramming, but any adjustment can be shortlived as robots invariably revert to default mode when left to their own devices for more than a couple of hours.

Same sort of thing happened when i was in the jobcentre. A lady turned up for an appointment to be told by an advisor that they were waiting for someone first who was already late & not even sure if they were going to turn up. The lady waited & by the time the other person turned up she could have already have been seen & been away. I just laughed at the lack of common sense.

In which case they really should up grade their Robots

Nope, you're not being unreasonable. They also don't have the ability to prioritise any more either. You need an emergency passport, you get treated the same as anyone else wanting an emergency passport. No allowance for an EMERGENCY! emergency. All treated the same. (Needed one when my dad died unexpectedly. Had to wait 3 week for an emergency passport appointment on account of it being the busy holiday period.)

yeah but I am sure that all the other people needing an emergency passport thought that their reasons were just as valid as yours Kladdkaka

I'm still not sure why we all need passports to travel within Europe anyways

Don't want to add insult to injury, but they might not even look at it - well not properly anyway. DH's friend was telling us that he has been from France to UK twice recently, once with an out of date passport - nobody noticed, and once without a passport at all as he was still waiting for the renewed passport

If we had ID cards we wouldn't need passports within the EU I don't think - that's what other Europeans use instead.

I have never NOT had my passport checked and have even often needed it on domestic flights as photo ID.

Yes but an ID card would cost as much as a passport and probably carry considerably more data about you. Making it easier than ever to steal your identity.

I don't think you're being grumpy and even if you are it sounds reasonable. It must be hellish having to work there too though, maybe their heart/sense has been sucked out of them. (Disclsimer: I'm feeling mellow today and even if they hate their job they don't have to behave like gits.)

i think it was heartless but perhaps the disabled toilet shouldn't be behind a barrier.

i think some people are a bit naive about how much trouble front line staff will get into for breaking protocol.

Quite probably but I was just answering why we have passports. Our countries don't always use them within EU as they use ID cards.

I have never not had our passports checked when flying - always checked once, if not twice.
Only one on ferry were they not checked - every other time and on tunnel they have been checked.

They always speak to DD and ask her a question such as her age or where we are going on holiday - well, in last 2 or 3 years anyway.

Mind, did drive from France to Spain last week on holiday and noone asked for passports when we crossed the border there.

And ID cards would go out of date and need renewing too Then you'd have two different forms of ID to pay for, keep up to date etc etc.

Agree with a pp who said that disabled toilets shouldn't be behind a barrier.

Dont get me started on passports! My live overseas and have now to apply through to france for a UK passport as they are no longer dealt with at embassies! I was fully at fault when applying for my new DDs passport (employer booked our flights) late, but now we're having hassle with the application and it's virtually impossible to contact them! We have sent all the original documents and certified translations along with the application (with DHL, so at a cost of 40 quid!) and they sent me an email to say that they needed either a certified translation to prove DDs family name or authorisation to issue her passport with her family name spelt incorrectly! They didnt even say which document they needed, but I am assuming her birth certificate- which they have in France! I called the 'help line' (which you have to give ccard details and be charged for the call at 72p/min) only for the guy to laugh and say that he didn't know! I then had a missed call from the embassy in france which I tried to return only to be told by the switchboard that they were not allowed to transfer me to the passport section! They have now sent me an email, but it looks as though whoever sent it made a mistake and sent it from her own email address, she then attempted to recall the email (not sure of the point of that as I had the original email and the recall note in my inbox?!?!) and then sent it again from the fco email address which is 'no reply'! So I emailed the womans own address...but who knows if she will reply....not sure what I can do now tbh?!! It looks like i am going to have to request a replacement birth certificate, get it translated again and then courier it to france AGAIN! The worst thing is that when looking through documents to see if I could find a mistake (I cant see how I would have missed an obvious typo?), I realised that my DS's name is spelt differently on his translation of birth certificate and it posed NO problem when we got his passport...I hate inconsistency!

We had to cancel our flights....

We need passports because the UK isn't part of the Schengen agreement. That's different to the EU. Going to Portugal from Denmark I never showed my passport but uk to dk each and every time.

redexpat is right - and it was the UK's choice not to join the Schengen agreement, so you can blame the government of the time (Tory).

yeah but I am sure that all the other people needing an emergency passport thought that their reasons were just as valid as yours Kladdkaka

I'm sure they did, but that's where discretion and common sense comes in. An emergency passport to go holiday should take a back seat to an emergency passport to enable someone to bury their father.

TAKE HEART ! THEY ARE "CIVIL FUCKWIT SERVANTS" no brains of any description , no ambition , no synaps, no neural networks joined up at all , they cannot think outside the staff codes , memos, notes, u go into the civil service as you are effectively a complete tosser , they cannot help it ! pity them !