I really am here to help you

It's a piece of Conventional Wisdom -- common, as far as I can tell, across the entire political spectrum -- that any interaction with a government agency is likely to be painful, slow, cumbersome; that any humans you actually manage to talk to will be surly, unhelpful, and/or incompetent; and that the whole experience will be generally unsatisfactory.

Well, let me tell you about an experience I had today.

( How I signed up for Social Security )

So much for Conventional Wisdom.