Literally, I've learned this lesson the hard way. The moment I have to wait more than an hour or so to figure out a government service or agency, I immediately lodge a formal complaint with my representative. They have a large staff dedicated to constituent services, and they have internal connections. They also follow up, and if the agency isn't doing well, they track it.
I've literally been begged by federal agents to leave good reviews with the congressman in order that they don't get their budget cuts. It's a welcome change of pace to be speaking with an agent that wants to help me.
As an example, my son's name was mis-spelled on the birth certificate and thus social security card. We waited for three hours in an SSA office to change it but the woman did not want to help us at all, and insinuated we were committing fraud.
I had it. I called my US representative and my two Senators and e-mailed them a full portfolio of the details. Within a day, I had their office calling me with a special SSA representative on the line. They were able to make me an actual appointment for next day service at the local SSA office speaking to a much more intelligent SSA agent, who was so friendly and helpful, it was almost unbearable. The best part was, I didn't have to even wait in line or at the front desk. She took my materials, told me she will personally investigate and get back to me. Within a day, she called me back, had everything figured out and had completed several steps of the process for me.
In sum, never deal with the agencies if it's becoming antagonistic. Contact your representative. It is literally their job.
I am a very conservative person, but I've lived in deep red districts and deep blue ones, and I've honestly never had a problem with any. If anything, I've noticed that the representatives I complain to a lot want to help more because they think they can get another voter by simply being decent. That's if the rep even gets involved.
I suppose some might be so incredibly bad at their job that they don’t have staff for constituent services, but most do. They don’t tend to ask who you voted for before helping. I’m in a very red state, vote for democrats, and have had state and federal republican rep offices help me out several times.
This is it. Calling your representative almost never results in you actually directly communicating with your representative (for better or worse). You will always get their staffers, who may have completely different moral and political agendas.
> Much like the United States has decided, in its infinite wisdom, that caseworkers for immigration and passport services should be staffed in every Congressman’s office and not at the agency that actually handles immigration or passport issuance, there very likely exist people at the bank whose job is working the bank more than it is working for the bank.
> As a sophisticated user of the banking system, a useful skill to have is understanding whether the ultimate solution to an issue facing you is probably available to Tier Two or probably only available to a professional earning six figures a year. You can then route your queries to the bank to get in front of the appropriate person with the minimal amount of effort expended on making this happen.
> You might think bank would hate this, and aggressively direct people who discover side channels to Use The 1-800 Number That Is What It Is For. For better or worse, the side channels are not an accident. They are extremely intentionally designed. Accessing them often requires performance of being a professional-managerial class member or otherwise knowing some financial industry shibboleths. This is not accidental; that greatly cuts down on “misuse” of the side channels by that guy.
It's not rocket science.
I have no idea why paying them less (which, not-increasing is the same as, given increase in population and inflation) would make them do better. Are they a petulant child and we're trying to "teach them a lesson"?
The IRS is one place I absolutely want my tax dollars to fund and it’s sad to see it get cut to the bone.