Respect My (Port) Authority!

Normally, I would, but if people knew how mismanaged and incompetent they were, their head would explode. Case in point:

Today, the Port Authority notifies us that they have one of our wanted persons in custody at the Newark, NJ airport. The person is wanted for robbery and related offenses. They send us a message over the teletype and ask if we will extradite the toad.

I wanted to write back, "No, we don't extradite people for robbery anymore. Idiots."

My conscience got the better of me, and I sent the confirmation back to the P.A. About a half an hour later, we get a call from some P.A. officer asking when we were going to send the confirmation. I said, "Are you kidding? I sent it back about 25 minutes ago." The P.A. officer asked me where I sent it, and I read off their IP address. The officer said, "Well, yeah, that's us, but it's another terminal in the building. Send it again."

Attitudes like these angry up the blood.

I calmly asked, "Officer, is the other terminal close by?"

He replied, "Yes, but I need this sent to my terminal. It's at the same address."

I wanted to say, "THEN GET UP OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND GET IT THEN!" but that would be rude of me, so I agreed to re-send the message.

A few minutes later, another P.A. officer called the division, asking - you guessed it - if we sent back the confirmation. I replied, "Don't you people talk to each other? I sent the confirmation back two times and talked to someone in your very office not five minutes ago."

His reply, "Well, I need the confirmation re-sent."

I told him to talk to the previous P.A. officer, because I was not going to send the confirmation a third time. The officer uttered a few "sentence enhancers" (that's swear words, to the uninitiated) and hung up.

Unreal. These are the people who are protecting New York City? We're doomed.