Finally they approved my passport application

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I haven't traveled abroad since the 90s and I was struggling with debt for a long time, so I let my original passport expire in about 2003. I got over my debt issues, and I was seriously thinking of taking a foreign holiday at the start of the year, but then I was laid off from my job, so I decided to delay gettng another passport till I was working again. It's taken me longer than expected to get another job though. I did have a job offer a couple of months ago, but it's conditional on both references and providing ID. Shouldn't have been a problem, should it? Except that the online service they were using only accepted passports as ID. It took me a few weeks to find out how to submit alternative documents manually. And they still haven't done all my references, so I haven't had a start date yet. Government job. It did get me thinking that you're a second-class citizen if you don't have a passport these days, and I want to make it as easy as possible to prove my ID to prospective employers, so I decided to apply for a new passport now. Naturally you can do it online these days and it looked straightforward enough. I filled the form in, submitted a photo of myself and paid the fee. But I also needed a referee. My best friend agreed to do that, but it was only after paying the fee that the list of requirements for a referee appeared. It had to be someone who both has a job and a passport. Ridiculous. My best fried doesn't travel abroad anymore, so her passport's expired. I only have a small circle of friends, and I don't know anyone who meets the full criteria. After phoning the advice line and writing to the Passport Office, I got my friend to fill in the online form. It was rejected. More phone calls and a letter to the Passport Office asking for a review. I did mention that another of my friends had voluteered to be my referee - he has a passport, but he's also long-term unemployed. One person I spoke to said he would be rejected too, but another said to try anyway, so we did. He submitted the form this morning, lunchtime I got a message that my application had been accepted, just after 4.00pm I got another message that my passport had been printed. What a wierd, outdated, overcomplicated system. Can you believe that it's taken almost a month from my initial application to being accepted? This is the 21st Century, but trust the British Civil Service to make things more of a drag than they have to be.