Photo Id

I passed through a TSA checkpoint at an airport last week (Is that redundant? Are there any TSA checkpoints not at airports?), and was largely tuned out of my surroundings until I heard the agent tell the gentleman behind me that the ID he had presented was not a RealID. The guy must have looked blank because the agent went on to explain that RealID was a new form of identification that would be mandatory as of next month (May), and you would not be allowed to fly without a RealID once the deadline had passed.

Curious at this point, I turned around to look at the guy.

Greek. It was clear the TSA agent had spoken Greek to the guy. “RealID” may as well have been a variation on spanakopita for all this guy understood.

I was a bit baffled as to how there was anyone left in the country who had not been observing with mild amusement as the federal government had pushed back the RealID deadline for the past five(?) years. I mean, sure, COVID made all the sense in the world to delay the rollout, but then, what? What happened in 2023? 2024?

I scratched my head for a bit before deciding I had stumbled onto one of those rare birds who existed in modern day society but had no idea how to function in it.

Then, of course, the real world smacked me upside the head – right in the same spot I had scratched – with the news that there were all sorts of those people living in the world.

Second case in point: I recently hired a lady for an assignment as a custodian for one of my school district clients. As is typical for pretty much every first day on the job that doesn’t involve a drive-thru, our contractors are required to check in at the front office to go through whatever the school needs in order to get them registered as a worker there. One of the basic requirements involves presentation of some kind of a government-issued photo ID to confirm identity.

As I said: Pretty standard. Here's a small plastic card that the government gave me to show the face that matches the name, and that the face in the picture is mine.

[We won’t get into the occasional odd instance when the birthday doesn’t match reality seeing as how that’s not the point of this particular posting, but you can imagine why I’m ignoring that particular detail, yes?]

When you get technical about it, documentation that meets the federal I9 standards is required to prove identity before being able to legally work in the United States. The most common forms include a driver's license and social security card, a passport, a permanent resident card, or an alien authorized to work [EAC] card. Really, though, there is a whole list of crap people can use, which I'm not going to list (go look it up online if you're so curious), all of which are government-issued and 80 percent of which have a picture attached.

Said another way: pretty much anything that satisfies I9 requirements is going to cover you for a school front office government-issued-photo-ID requirement.

Anyway, this lady had provided her EAC card to my office a few weeks back to complete an initial suite of I9 forms. Some number of days later, I sent her the first day information for her assignment along with a reminder that she needs to have a photo ID with her for check-in and registration with the school. The contractor emailed back she "doesn't have a photo ID yet."

Sigh.

I double-checked she had already brought in her I9 documentation and confirmed it was an EAC card (which is required to have a picture on it). Yep. Didn’t remember that one wrong.

Heaving another sigh, I emailed her back and told her that the ID she presented while in-office for her I9 forms is acceptable to bring to the school.

What I did not say was that a plastic card with a picture on it issued by the federal government is very obviously a government-issued-photo-ID because it has a PHOTO with IDENTIFYING INFORMATION on it that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT sent to her.

But I guess it takes all kinds of people to make a world.

Oh, and for those of you who don’t have your RealID yet: What. The.