I recently made the big step of purchasing a condo in downtown Milwaukee (I know, my bad). Regardless of paying some of the highest property taxes in the country, I am now dealing with all the headaches of filing my deed and doing a number of other tasks contingent upon city workers. As you would expect, no city offices are open before 8 AM (when regular people have to work), and guess when they close… RIGHT AGAIN – 4:30 PM. So, as a regular worker paying their salaries with your tax dollars, you need to fit into the city union workers’ schedules by taking time off from work to file THEIR forms and pay THEIR fees (online anyone… anyone).
After confirming these tried and true assumptions about union sloth, I decided to take off an hour early this afternoon so I could make it to the Milwaukee County Courthouse in time without wasting too much of my work day out of the office. I arrived just in time! I had all my paper work filled out, notarized and ready to roll. I walked up to the door for the Register of Deeds and yank on the door…. locked tight. Darn! Oh, look, there’s a nice woman maybe this is just a mistake, maybe there are people around here who do work. She strolled up leisurely in her coat and scarf and opened the door to inform me that they were closed. I said, “Ma’am, it says right on window you are open till 4:30 and I only have one document to file that should take less than 5 minutes.” She responded, “I know, it doesn’t matter. We always lock the doors at 4:20. There’s no one even at the windows.” Your tax dollars hard at work!
Being the investigative type that I am, I made a quick call to County Executive Scott Walker’s Office (they are one of the only ones open as it turns out!) and talked to a very nice woman that answered the phone. I explained that I knew that this is the way some lazy bureaucracies work but there had to be a better way, why not stay open some evenings for us 9-to-5ers? She explained they were union employees who don’t want to work outside of regular hours and if they did, they would hit us hard with overtime bills. I said hey, let them come in late some days and work late others, like the state DMVs that are now contracted out. She said she would pass on the ideas.
How about some of that change everyone is talking about here?
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Tags: Employees, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County Executive, Union
You are a very hateful young man…
Anyone would be understandably upset by that experience. Brandon is to be congratulated for pursuing an explanation and offering a reasonable solution worth exploring.
So when I try to stop be your office after 6 you will be there right?
As to the clerk’s office locking their doors at 4:20 that is ridiculous. They should lock the doors when they say they are going to close. You must have caught them on a bad day because I have used the clerk’s office right up to 4:30 several times.
Brandon offers a reasonable solution for positions that are customer service heavy. During the holidays, I know we have a rotating list of people responsible for answering the phones, even when on vacation. It’s just good customer service.
Although, sometimes you just have to move your schedule around a little to get the things done that you need to get done. Do you go to the doctor or dentist only before 8:30 am and after 5:00 pm? Or do you take the time to get in when you need to get in?
At the very least the office should abide by the posted hours and remain open until then. If an individual requests action on something that would take longer, then the staff could simply ask the individual to come back a different time. But to simply shut the doors 10 minutes early is absurd. Even if that only happens once a week, that is 40 minutes a month the taxpayers will never get back.
Way to do something about it Brandon!
If Brandon really wants to do something about it, call the Clerk’s office, not Walker’s office. Walker cannot do anything about it, except grandstand. The Clerk can.
Just a quick note, I did call the Register of Deeds office but, I couldn’t until the next day because they were closed (and the doors locked at 4:20). I called the County Executive’s office because it is the only one I could find that was open until 5 pm.
So what did the Register of Deeds office say?
Knowing how to address this situation could be valuable for everyone. What could someone reasonably expect the clerk’s office to do? Furthermore, what could be done if the clerk’s office doesn’t do anything helpful?
You lead off bemoaning city offices and city workers, but all your issues take place at the County courthouse. The county courthouse is full of county offices staffed by county employees, not city workers. Those county employees are Walker’s employees.