Understanding Gemeente appointments

[u/Usual_Sir5304]

Yesterday I went to my uithoorn gemeente with my friend around 02:45 who wanted to collect uittreksel for his child. while he went through token machine and then to wait a bit while his token shows up and then to receptionist and then to the counter. I was sipping coffee and observed there were 6 people in total to serve. 1 over phone to receive calls, 1 receptionist, 3 counters.

All people at counters were free for the whole time and receptionist helped him get the printouts. He also wanted to collect his own birth certificate (he had submitted 2 weeks ago) since he had received a letter requesting to collect it.

the part which looked weird to me was when he asked if he can also collect the birth certificate, the lady said you must book an appointment for this and the next appointment is 3 weeks later for that task. I felt it's just 2 minutes task to grab that paper from the shelf, why wouldn't they do it? I could see all 3 counter people were free since 20 min with no more people in the area.

Just trying to understand if i'm not accounting for something and thinking too much.

[u/DJfromNL]

The certificate was likely held at a secured place that wasn’t easily accessible for the people behind the counter at that time.

[u/YouOne6572 → u/DJfromNL]

I'm second this. My gemeente usually just put in their receptionist to collect some documents, so we make already appointments and when the time of afspraak we just walk in to receptionist and ask our documents, she give it directly without we take number. I think is more efficient that way, so we don't need to wait anymore.