One month and counting. The mail has been delivered and I am still waiting for a promised government document to reach me. Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.

Feeling like a character out of the fictional works of Franz Kafka, I am obliged to interact and interface with various and sundry bureaucrats and clerks. One can spend hours trying to get necessary papers from the bloated county government. Lawyers derisively refer to the “Circus Court of Cook County” and dread having to retrieve files from the office of the Circuit Court Clerk, Dorothy Brown. One of my friends is a circuit court judge. He’s described the clerks as the bane of a judge’s existence I have decided to keep him anonymous, so he won’t be subjected to retaliatory conduct in the form of slower clerical responses and more mislaid files.

Abandon all hope ye who have to read the handwritten tract book entries in the office of the Recorder of Deeds.” While the oldest entries appear to have been executed in Palmer’s Perfect Penmanship styled strokes, the latter entries would defy a pharmacist’s ability to decipher bad handwriting. Mercifully, the tract books were discontinued in the eighties and newer entries are computerized. Fittingly, the tract books are kept in the dungeon like basement of the county building.

In order to squeeze more revenue out of county residents, the Cook county board has continually increased the freight charges to be paid by unfortunate souls in need of government issued documents and forms. Paying higher prices, however, does not provide any reasonable assurance of prompt service. Could scribes toiling in monastic communities produce finished documents more quickly?

Vague rumors abound that in the outlying collar counties, greater efficiency is the norm and labor saving office equipment has been purchased. These provincial backwaters do not have to provide make work employment for members of the Eighth Ward Regular Democratic organization and award computer consulting contracts to relatives of the state senate president. Someday soon, I expect to see men wearing silk top hats and carrying carpet bags, smoking cheroots while loitering and laughing in the corridors of the county building.

Some years ago, presidential biographer David Maraniss (author of the Clinton biography, “First in His Class”) turned his attentions from the District of Columbia and looked to the frozen tundra of Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. Maraniss returned to his Wisconsin roots and wrote a biography of the late Vince Lombardi, “When Pride Still Mattered. “

Lombardi redefined the notion of possessing a serious work ethic. A product of Jesuit education, when the such a description still stood for something, Lombardi was an early riser and a daily Mass goer. He firmly believed that do something required that action be practiced until perfected and then carried out precisely and correctly. Although Lombardi had been a well regarded athlete at Fordham (when the Catholic university still had an exceptional football program), he was something of an unknown quantity when he was selected for the head coaching position with the then dismal Green Bay Packers.

The Packers finished in last place the year before Lombari came to Green Bay.. Within two years, the team was poised to begin an unprecedented era of success, five championship titles in a nine year period and not a single losing season. Lombardi soon became a highly sought after motivational speaker for corporate business meetings. His athletic maxims were thought to have practical applications in the larger game of life. “Lombardi time” meant that an individual’s punctuality was measured by the ability to consistently arrive ten to fifteen minutes early for every scheduled appointment.

In our Casual Friday world, which seems to hold sway all week long at the county building, would Lombardi be able to motivate anyone to be prepared for the tasks scheduled and to do their best? One wonders if his anything worth doing is worth doing well approach would succeed at the county building. Would clerical employees fall asleep during his pep talk or would the living dead rise up and pay attention to his admonitions? Yes, I know that many clerical jobs are low paying and unexciting, but there is something to be said for doing a task, no matter how humble, correctly.

On October 3rd, I presented myself at the offices of Cook County Clerk, David D. Orr, to place an order for a death certificate. The appropriate and excessive fee was paid and a receipt was issued. The certified copy would be mailed or so I was told. Yesterday, I made a return trip to the clerk’s office and I was told that the processing time for documents from the bureau of vital statistics is averaging a full eight weeks. Some lame excuse was put forward about “the backlog” and “the new system.” I was advised if I was unhappy about the efficiency that I was welcome to take up the matter “downtown.” The need to refer such matters to the downtown office somehow defeats the purpose of maintaining suburban satellite offices to my way of thinking.

As a former Chicago alderman (and acting mayor for a thankfully brief few days), Orr pursued a “progressive” agenda which did not always include performing essential services. Few people would guess that the diverse and eclectic 49th Ward of today was considered to be reliably middle class and Republican until the Fifties. While I waited in line, I thought to myself if Orr had failed to bring the blessings of socialism to all of his Rogers Park constituents, surely, he had managed to recreate Soviet style efficiency for those of us waiting for documents from the Clerk‘s office.

If my ultimate fate is to spend time in purgatory, will I receive any credit for time served in the basement of the county building?

Sometimes, I am ashamed to explain to clients the confiscatory fees charged by city and county offices to perform routine governmental functions. Like taxes, the fees continually increase while customer service continually declines. Filing a suit, serving a writ, purchasing a birth certificate always costs more in Cook County. But where does the money go? None of the elected officials seem to care about customer service unless there is a primary election scheduled.

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Lawyer Daniel J. Kelley is a contributor to the Chicago Daily Observer when he is not waiting in line for documents