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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
ok here's another one, simpler problem which involves people and bureaucracies:
you go to a government agency and ask for a certain response to a certain request
a (nice) government employee submits your request to the agency and says they will get back to you when the answer comes
but they refuse to give you a timeline for it except for "when it comes"
the following week, with the excuse of submitting paperwork, you remind them you're waiting for the reply
they say they have submitted your request and will notify you
how soon is too soon to remind them again of your existence, if you haven't heard yet, without becoming a pain in the ass? 
or do you push push push push until they either get you the answer or tell you to fuck off? 
hmmmm...
this is a nice person btw i dont wanna piss them off unnecessarily. i'm just not used to no deadlines because i have one and something's gotta give--. |
Oh, this one I might be able to help with. I'm a nice guy who was raised by a sarcastic penny pinching bastard, so I have an innate "clerkbating" (as my father calls it) skill.
I get that the person's nice, and you don't want to be a dick, but by all fucking means remind them of your existence, like, now.
I think it's possible to do this politely. It requires a certain kind of *nudge-nudge* single-serving camaraderie that you can develop with clerks of all stripes if you kind of speak to them at their level (not in a class way, I just mean be empathetic).
I've filed a lot of government requests in my time. Most of them have been me needing something and being treated like garbage (an unemployment extension, for example). But I don't think this is the kind of thing you're asking about... I'd recommend going in in person at your soonest convenience and waiting for the crowd to thin a bit, or possibly near the end of the day when there aren't a lot of people around. I'd just be extremely gracious and polite. If you have a deadline looming, you just plain need to get an answer, and if he takes umbrage then he's not a nice chap after all, and you can rip out his jugular.
In short, there is no such thing as "too soon" if the request is pressing enough. For my unemployment, when I was on it, I had to be vigilant and persistent, but I was never mean because most govt workers deal with entitled nasty people all the time. If you like deadlines then I'll give you a deadline: 1 week from the last time you checked in, no later.
Of course it all depends on the request and the restrictions of your own deadline.