Thursday, May 20, 2010

Eludius - Illegal Immigrant?

I received an email from the HR department a few weeks ago informing me that my I-9 form was incomplete and I needed to come on one of 4 days and complete it at one of the specified times.

I-9? What's an I-9 form? I looked it up on the Internet and learned that this is the form that you can pretend that you are an American citizen or someone of non-U.S. origin that is eligible to work in the United States - unlike the millions of Mexicans illegally working in meat-packing plants in the west.

I thought it was odd (notice I didn't say that I "felt it was odd" - thinkers versus feelers). I had been working at American Amalgamated Corrugated Conglomerates of America for over 13 years. And they now just realized that there was a problem with my form? Is the Obama Administration doing a blind audit ignoring the factual stereotype of the typical illegal immigrant. Sorry - I meant to say undocumented worker.

I was unable to make it to the first two dates. On the third assigned date I clicked on the link to print the form and noticed in the instructions that I needed to bring in my driver's license and another form of identification, either a birth certificate or a social security card. Tarter-sauce! I didn't have either of these with me.

Fortunately, I have both of these forms of identification. And I'm not like the thousands of illegal immigrants who have identical social security numbers because they're stolen. My number is all mine!

So on the fourth and final day I get a warning email that I'll be deported to Parador unless I complete the form TODAY. Slightly after 9am I show up in the HR office, which oddly is staffed ENTIRELY by women (sarcasm?). There is an older woman with a somewhat faux happy disposition. She welcomes me, I identify myself, and she pulls out my form.

She then surprises herself and exclaims, "Oh! Looks like all you need to do is sign the form!" I'm beside myself. I aggravated myself several times and all I needed to do was sign the form? She didn't even ask to see my identification. For all she knew I could have been Muhammed Jose' O'McMurphy.

Then as I am about to hand her the form I notice that an entire section is incomplete. "Should I complete this section, too?" "Oh, my! Yes please."

Here's the punch: "Perhaps I should have audited my own form." Ohhhhh - she didn't like that! Her friendly disposition sprints out of the room and the devil who didn't get his morning coffee fills the empty space. The glare from her eyes is burning my skin. I quickly complete the section and dash out of the room.

Lesson learned - people in Human Resources have no sense of humor - especially when you point out how incompetent they are at dong their job completely.

1 comment:

Charm City Kim said...

So I guess they never learned that you were Muhammed Jose' O'McMurphy?

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