Snarky Behavior

Dear Sir: Where I write an open letter as a healthy outlet for my anti-authoritarianism, and for the amusement of my friends.

Dear United States District Court for the District of Columbia,

I recently received my summons for jury service. As instructed, I filled out the required information and sent it to your office in the mail. That was roughly six weeks ago.

Recently, when I used your online system to check my reporting status, I was told the following:

As of today, your jury questionnaire, was not received in time to process. Therefore, you are NOT required to report and NO PENALTY will be imposed against you. However, you will be re-summoned again in the future. The Court thanks you for your cooperation on this matter.

While I was not exactly “enthused” about my civic duty in the first place, and do not necessarily lament the resulting deferral, I must admit I am rather surprised that six weeks was not ample time to enter my data into your system.

For two years during college I worked as a research assistant, and my primary responsibility was data entry. No matter how tired I was, or how stressed I might be, or how much I had drank the night before, I never considered this line of work to be even remotely difficult. It was so easy, in fact, that to this day I fail to understand why Mexican day-laborers pine for landscaping jobs when they could make twice the money scribing information from paper to spreadsheet.

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would even venture to guess that data entry is so easy, a DC civil servant could do it. Even those educated in your school system.

Now, to be fair, I understand that you are probably working at near-capacity processing jay-walking tickets and legitimate lawsuits. And it must be disheartening going through the process of selecting jurors when their decisions are being summarily dismissed, anyway.

Still though, six weeks is a long time. You already had most of my information anyway, from my drivers license. Oh wait! You suspended that indefinitely until my jay-walking contest is resolved. (You know…because I’m a danger behind the wheel, as demonstrated by my reckless walking habits. Sometimes, I even have a BAC over .08 when I walk.)

And while I do appreciate you not imposing some sort of penalty against me for your failing to process my information, what’s with the ominous “you will be re-summoned in the future”? Can I get a date range please? Believe it or not, people generally like to travel in the summer between June 29 and July 16. But that’s ok, I wanted to block out that window of my summer anyway. Sweaty guys like myself live for high heat and humidity.

All of this hassle so I could register to vote in a city whose motto is “Taxation without Representation.”

As it turns out, I am moving to New York, a real city where people do things like “work.” I’ll be sure to write and let you know how that is.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Franklin Host