An errand yesterday at the Social Security office downtown. Was very apprehensive about this trip for some reason, expecting squalor and tedium and Byzantine office layouts – I remember the old social Security office in inner NE, near the house we lived in fifteen years ago. It was dismaying in a squalid way: old wooden chairs along the wall in a certain disarray, the waiting people disabled, older, whiter, swollen with diabetes, wrapped in bandages, confined to wheelchairs, or just ill; the minority poor with less obvious ailments, all needing far more than any office was offering. There was an undertone of common suffering, a small, palpable buzz of people who may not have seen each other before or for a while, but who could see & knew each others' conditions.
Yesterday's office was worn but clean, had airport-type security (minus the full-body scanner & taking off your shoes) with surveillance camera & monitor up in the corner of the ceiling. The wall facing the entrance was taken up with a huge TV screen with notices in many languages and a row of call-numbers for those waiting, who, by and large, were younger than I expected, and more of colour than not. Those who sat on the side-bench that ran the length of the waiting area - seats larger & softer, with better-angled backs - tended to be older and whiter; they sat with their backs to the wall, leaving the more obvious minorities under two sets of surveillance. The more obvious minorities sat in the pre-arranged, ordered rows of single plastic chairs facing the big TV, heads down, eyes on phones. The SoSec clerks sat on the other side of the room behind single, separate, (bullet-proof?) glass windows behind a half-glass walkway and wall, occasionally calling the next number. There were three armed guards. The room was silent.
Yesterday's office was worn but clean, had airport-type security (minus the full-body scanner & taking off your shoes) with surveillance camera & monitor up in the corner of the ceiling. The wall facing the entrance was taken up with a huge TV screen with notices in many languages and a row of call-numbers for those waiting, who, by and large, were younger than I expected, and more of colour than not. Those who sat on the side-bench that ran the length of the waiting area - seats larger & softer, with better-angled backs - tended to be older and whiter; they sat with their backs to the wall, leaving the more obvious minorities under two sets of surveillance. The more obvious minorities sat in the pre-arranged, ordered rows of single plastic chairs facing the big TV, heads down, eyes on phones. The SoSec clerks sat on the other side of the room behind single, separate, (bullet-proof?) glass windows behind a half-glass walkway and wall, occasionally calling the next number. There were three armed guards. The room was silent.
