Hurry up and wait

Welcome to the United States of America! Skip Ellis Island, bypass the Hollywood sign, run past the Walk of Fame, and zip along Sunset Boulevard to... The local Social Security office! Yaaay! So far, in this highlighted section of my tribulations, I've waited in line for a total 4 hours, not including the total of 3 hours I have waited on the phone with various agencies, all to tell me to hurry up and wait. So far, I am mired in the interwoven web of: Social Security Number -> tax database entry -> HR file -> payroll -> work eligibility. Taken in another way, this mathematical identity becomes: SSN -> national credit database -> credit rating -> American Express card -> US Address -> Internet purchase confirmation -> IKEA catalogue orders.

The long and short of it is that I'm temporarily unemployed for 3-15 business days, thankyouverymuchforcallingsocialsecuritygoodbye. That, and I've somehow managed to logically connect my status in the federal tax databse to IKEA catalogue orders over the 'net.

Funny how the world works.