Picking up my Permiso was strange. A completely different experience than I ever had at INM before. I was about 7th in line after arriving at 7:25 am. At 8:45, a Security Guard, took me out of line and ushered me inside where I was told to take a seat. A couple of minutes later I was motioned to the counter where you would normally go upon entering the bldg. I was given Ficha #1, and took a seat again. I forget what color it was but there are four color options. There were 6 others now inside. A lady with a baby, an older couple and a couple of strays like me. I was called to the counter for whatever color my Ficha was, and asked what I was there to pick up. Told her and she called me by name a minute later. I had to sign a couple of places and she handed me my Permiso. I was out the door before the 9:00 am opening time. All of those ahead of me in line were still outside. What was noticeable was, for the first time ever, there was an administrative type person, a man, who was moving things along, sort of calling the shots and directing traffic. He was moving from inside to outside and back repeatedly. In retrospect, I made a few mental observations. 1. If the employees are all in place and have their preopening duties accomplished, let's open the doors and get things moving. Let the party begin. 2. Let's give priority entry to those who appear to need it. Women with children, the old, the handicapped, or sick people. I guess I fell into the "old" category. 3. No one was harmed by the combination of these first two observations. All of the early entries were before 9:00 am and at that time, the people in line started to enter based on their spots in line. No harm, no foul. 4. Whoever or whatever this administrative man is, it was a good thing. Things were happening and he was clearly in charge of the room. He seemed only to be interacting with employees on the inside and with security on the outside. He never stopped moving, observing, or giving instructions to employees. 5. Some comments on the outside line. No one tried to jump the line at any time. Arriving so early there is really no line at that point. New arrivals simply ask who is the last person and that person raises their hand or speaks up. So you immediately know who is in front of you and when the next person arrives you know who is behind you. Almost on cue people started moving to the actual line at 8:30 AM. Way too early in my opinion. At this point it was like being in line at the Walmart 20 items or less area. Everybody is jammed closely together and guy behind me in line was actually making contact. Yuck. My thought was this could easily wait until five or 10 minutes before 9 AM. But when I got asked to go inside I thought maybe this is not so bad after all. That's pretty much my experience.
Thanks for the update, T.J. We went today, arriving at 9:55 AM. There was an enormous line. We were out, Permiso in hand, at 11:25, so just about 1.5 hours elapsed time. Once again, Grace benefited from having an old guy along: they pulled me out of the line outside, and put us both inside, where we were given a turn number. The rest of the time was just spent cooling our heels inside. She was turn number 16. Trina was there, too. She told me she´d gotten there at 7:20 AM, and was still there when we left. _________________
Clearly a hands on leader, he was visible there each time we've been, too, even telling those waiting-whose chatter had become so loud the clerks were having a hard time hearing- to pipe down! He's not a leader who feels it's beneath his dignity to get into the crowd and mix it up. That's a demonstration of humility and personal leadership that is rare among his class in Mexico.
