It's hard enough to graduate and look for a job in normal circumstances, but it's even harder when you do it in the middle of a global pandemic, with a recession taking place and jobs disappearing. To put it succinctly "adulting" is daunting. While finding a job is a big relief, new graduates who just got hired are in for a wild ride—in the form of a long list of pre-employment requirements tied to the first paycheck.
Thankfully, half of it was to be handled by the company's human resources (side note: read instructions carefully so you won't end up doing the legwork yourself only to find that they already have it covered, but that's a story for another day). But getting your own Social Security System number is your responsibility.
Of course, Google is always your friend if you want to get a headstart on these things, but Reddit threads are equally, if not more helpful. It's where we found out that in order to get a Social Security (SSS) number, one must register through their online facility. Doing so only takes minutes, but the real work starts from there since you'll need to drop off the requirements at the nearest SSS branch.
We thought "We just need to drop off the papers. How hard could that possibly be?" We did the online registration on a Monday night and since we were handling other pre-employed requirements at the same time, we figured we could drop by sometime later in the week to do so.
Wrong. When we got to SSS Diliman on Thursday, we learned that the SSS has implemented a number-coding scheme in light of the pandemic. Unfortunately for us, we were only eligible to process things on a Monday since our number ended with 2.
On the assigned Monday, our alarm was set for 5:30 a.m. Armed with a face mask and face shield, we booked a ride to SSS in Puregold, Cubao, hoping to be first in line at 6:30 a.m. It was, after all, still an hour and a half ahead of their 8 a.m. opening.
If your college experience prepared you for enduring long lines and red tape, thank your lucky stars. And by the way, when friends tell you that was a breeze to get their SSS number, never believe them.
The six-feet distance necessary for social distancing wasn't being observed in the long lines, and we started hoping that there wouldn't be much interaction among those in line while we each waited for our turn. Too soon, our hopes were dashed when the man next to us started ranting about the experience he went through the other week. He also jokingly said that the line was bound to get shorter soon enough.
Mall doors finally opened at 8 a.m., but an hour later, the line had barely moved. It was time to tell our supervisors that we wouldn't make it to the office on time.
We were finally given our queue number at 11:30 a.m., which meant more lines. The only difference is that the second floor of the building, where SSS is, had seats. People were looking even more exhausted and fed up, sacrificing half a day for this errand.
What followed were two hours more of waiting. Finally at 2:30 p.m., doors finally opened and we were given another transaction number. It turned out that this was just another queuing system for the different counters set up inside the SSS office.
People randomly sat around, probably waiting for their number to flash on the monitor dedicated to their respective counters. To make things worse, the number given to us at the door was already six or seven numbers past what was being called out. No one was transacting anymore, and the clerk was just sitting there, saying it had been 30 minutes since she called for our number.
As much as we wanted to complain about the whole process, all we could do then was sit down and submit our documents just to get things over with. In no less than five minutes, we were out the door, hungry, and perplexed about why it had to take six hours of lining up just to complete such a short and simple transaction.
Looking back, we realized there were things we could have done. We could have researched more, and found about the number coding system they had. We could have gone there much earlier (probably at 5 a.m.) and gotten first in line. Or we could have just forgotten about all of this, charged it to experience, and not written about how inefficient the whole process was in view of a life-threatening pandemic, when one is not supposed to be around that many people and fall in line for that long.
Or you know, we could demand more from over government agencies. It's our taxes, after all.
Main image used for illustrative purposes.
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