Red Pass at the GTAA

[ZARCON]

Has anyone gone for a Red Pass lately? I heard the process is a nightmare and that people are waiting hours to get thru. Any suggestions?

[CaptainHaddock]

Go relatively early in the morning, the security guard will give you a chit with your number and a time to be expected to be called.Usually you'll have a couple of hours to kill(I went to the mall), when you get back you just sit around and wait.They have a bus parked there all day for a semblance of heat. Dress warmly and bring a book\gameboy\AIM (whatever floats your boat).
After your number is called (mine was an hour and a half after the time I was told to expect) you are then allowed into the building to line up at the reception line to obtain your new number for waiting to be served inside.Make sure you have all required documents and filled in properly,it's at this stage that you might be sent packing if you don't have all your ducks in a row.(I saw one very angry and frustrated guy have to leave)
Now you just wait, if you have made it into the building prior to 1700 you are O.K., they lock the doors but will process everybody that is inside.My total time was about 10:30AM to 18:30PM not including commute!

Good Luck!

[howey]

It is a pain in the ass. I renewed my GTAA pass about a month ago and waited aprox 4-5 hours, and thats quick.

[ZARCON]

Thanks Haddock, I have heard the same about going early. Can you do the 2 hour course on the same day or do you have to wait in line for that.

[Dave T]

Is there a specific reason that it is taking so long? I know when we switched to the RAIC passes in YC they had a bit of plan set up. As long as you didn't wait until the last minute it seemed okay. Bit of a pain not to bad. If this is an everyday thing in TO then something should be done. Nobody should have to wait in line that long.

[frontside_air]

Go relatively early in the morning, the security guard will give you a chit with your number and a time to be expected to be called.

yeah the whole thing is convoluted and an exercise in wasting the time of everyone involved. if you're having trouble finding the pass office just look for the plumes of smoke from the burning cars and molatov cocktails, then listen for the angry mob and screaming babies as you get closer.

- show up at 8am to take the course at 9am. first come first serve so don't bother showing up at 9 because you'll be too far back in the line to be allowed into the classroom. all this to get a stamp on your piece of paper that symbolizes your ability to remain upright in a chair for three hours while your brain cells commit ritual suicide seppuku with every new powerpoint slide. things would go marginally faster if peoples' cellphones didn't keep going off causing you to stay awake (whether or not this is a blessing or hinderance is debatable)

- then on to the pass office: show up at midnight, flash your headlights three times at the bushes and walk up to the security guard with your hard boiled egg (they will do the spin test to check) to get a ticket with a time slot for the following day

- show up at your assigned time, fight your way through the angry mob, hand the chit to the guard between the last two fingers of your left hand while giving him the ole freemason handshake with the right. he'll check off your name on his clipboard and then you're cleared to wait in line at reception

- get to the reception counter and hand the lady your paperwork in a pile starting from shortest to longest sheets of paper. the lady proceeds to interrogate you about the last five years of your life while double checking the postal code of your third grade teacher's plumber's uncle's pool cleaner. she will then congratulate you for being literate, hand you yet another number and -because you haven't had enough practice yet- tell you to wait some more

- if you're lucky you'll get a seat. most likely beside someone who evidently hasn't been able to get into a shower without having a restricted area pass on one side and some poor rampie just coming off their shift who falls asleep on your shoulder on the other (use a newspaper or something to collect their drool; if they smudge the stamp on your application you're screwed)

- then you get to stare mindlessly at the tv (rachel ray on one, the view on the other...don't know about you but this is my very own version of hell), play the "what job does this dude have" game in your head, listen in on everyone else's cellphone conversations, count the number of synapses firing in your brain all the while interspliced with the *ding* of the number counter. now here's the real brilliance of the pass office as a sociological anthropological experiment: the numbers are not handed out linearly. that is to say- for any six people in line they may get A008, B245, C038, D284, E193, F003 so you never really know when you're "next" per se. the result is a room full of sensory deprivated mammals slowly and methodically being conditioned to respond to the *ding* of the counter. pavlov would be proud. at one time when i was in there they *dinged* the *dinger* three times in a row and sent the crowd into a veritable frenzy of number checking and salivation

- when your number finally gets called make sure you yell BINGO!, run down to the front counter like you're on the price is right and trash talk everyone who's still waiting ("later suckaz!") because now's your shot and you're finally done

- get up to the counter and hand over your paperwork, passport, birt cert, bestbuy card, mariott points card and last three yearbook pictures. the lady/dude (or ladyboy if you're doing this in thailand) will disappear to "verify" all you docs (read- copy everything for later sale on the ID theft market). then she/he will tell you to sit back down and wait to be called for fingerprinting. you wade awkwardly back into the throng of people you thought you were done with earlier but now with a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel

- more mind numbing waiting. by this time your reasoning abilities are considerably degraded and you turn to the people around you and start discussing your dreams and aspirations for when you "get out". "first thing i'm going to do is hug my kids..." "i'm going to go back to school..." "i'm going to learn another language..." "i'm going to ask janice to marry me...." "i think i left the goddamned iron on..."

- your name is called and it takes a second to respond but you go into the room number that followed your name. various body parts are pressed into/on/around/between various machines of varying warmth making a variety of noises. after they have enough information to develop your clone you're released back out into the masses to wait some more.

- you start to feel like a consumate vetran and can't help but smirk as the new bodies pour through the front door ("poor souls, you have no idea what awaits! reconcile your affairs before venturing any deeper!"), you're an old pro who's been in the trenches for all too long, you've got the thousand yard stare, you've seen too much, you're colonel kurtz in the heart of darkness, you're mel gibson ready to die for freedom, you're...your name is called again. your still-warm pass is handed to you without ceremony and the game's over! you shuffle out past the weary and weak, they pat your back and congratulate you while asking you to tell their story to the people on the outside. there's a tinge of survivor's guilt as you get into your car as you think about all the less fortunate people on the inside, the slaves to the *ding*

if you mess up any of the aforementioned steps then you do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars, and "no pass for you!" from the pass nazis. there are stories of people waiting five hours only to be turned away because of a forgotten employer address from five years ago, another didn't know the port of entry of their ex-husband and she was turned away. if you don't come at midnight to get a "slot" then you're rolling the dice by showing up the next day. as said they chartered a bus for people to wait in in the parking lot because the queues get so long. when i left i heard some banging coming from the bus (which made me think maybe i should have waited in the thumping party bus!) but it turned out to be one of my buddies who showed up that morning without a slot number and was told to wait in the bus...which he was LOCKED INSIDE for an undetermined period of time (lol). we had to talk through the rubber gap seal in the doors; he said they told them to get inside and that they would be allowed into the pass office in three hours(!) but for the interim the driver just shut the doors and left haha. it's one of those airside buses with a separate driver compartment so there's no way to open the doors from the pax area. for this reason i don't recommend going to the pass office if you have a heart condition or are more than 6 months pregnant. it was more than vaguely reminiscent of charleton heston's incarceration in planet of the apes ("get your lasers off my eyeballs you damned dirty pass office workers!").

things have come to this because of the new RAIC passes that everyone has to get (originally by the end of december which has been pushed back twice). the GTAA pass office can only process about 170ish people per day so before the whole "meet the midnight guard" thing people lined up starting at 4am for the doors to open at 0730 but if you were number 176 in line then you were SOL and had to come back the next morning. the whole thing is quite absurd, evocative of a post-apocalyptic society and wildly ridiculous but we all have to do it so you might as well have a sense of humor about the whole thing. bring a book/ipod/crochet/AFM/food and resign yourself to the fact that you're going to be there for a day. i managed to get a phone number from the cute girl in my row so i can't call the experience a complete write off.

*ding* NEXT!

[2milefinal]

That was good.
It took me a total of 20 mins ... at the airport I work at.
Gotto love the Big T.O.

[Pete]

Frontside that was classic lol. Its so true though. If you arent there at 5am to get the first ticket...dont bother wasting your day. I HATE that place!!!

Its honestly depressing, I dont think I could ever work at the airport again because of that pass office...its not worth it going to hell and back! Its like being processed for lockup. I couldnt stand that one polish chic or the guy who did the safety seminar that everyone has to do (hes one phuckin special case). If a T isnt crossed or an I isnt dotted on any of your forms...you become a criminal in their eyes and they send you away to get new papers from your company. Make sure everything is perfect on your forms...they can be real picky douches.

How people can stand to work in that nut house I have no idea. I dont care how great the pay could potentially be, Id rather cut my knob off with a spoon. Anyways be the first person there in the am.