I sometimes find myself waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" of working for the Social Security Administration. Even though when I started working for the SSA in 1973, the agency was already almost 40 years old, I still think of that time period as the good "old" days.

But then sometimes I wonder if those days were really all that good. So let me take you back to a Social Security office in 1973.

The office was always clean and located in the heart of a city. (Of course, in big cities, there were frequently more than a few offices scattered around the metropolitan area.) Sometimes the office was in a Federal Building along with other government agencies in town. But more often than not, it was in a stand-alone building in an easy-to-get-to part of town. These were almost always spaces that the government rented from the building's owners.

But believe it or not, way back then, the SSA occasionally bought a building to use as a Social Security office. These were known as "trust fund" offices because the money to buy the space came out of the Social Security trust funds. (I really don't know, but I am sure this practice stopped many years ago.) Just like a house that is owned is usually nicer and better kept up than a house that is rented, I remember that the few trust fund offices I was familiar with were some of the nicest government properties I ever saw.

Once inside the office, there was always one reception desk and then a whole slew of desks behind the receptionists where people like me worked. Today's SSA offices are different - at least the ones I've seen since I retired in 2005. Sadly, today, they look a bit fortress-like, with armed guards and all kinds of barriers between the public and the SSA workers. I guess that's just a sign of the times we now live in.

Also, in the "old days," you could simply walk into your local Social Security office and get taken care of. Although you may be able to just walk into an office today, you better be prepared to wait a long time because you generally must have an appointment to take care of any Social Security business.

Also, in-office staffing has been cut dramatically. There were 82,000 employees when I started working for the SSA. We were constantly winning awards for providing top-notch public service, frequently even beating out private sector service providers. That doesn't happen anymore because staffing levels have been slashed to about 50,000. (People always claim they want a smaller government. And at least in the case of Social Security, they are getting it.)

That's why today, people are strongly encouraged to handle their Social Security business online. And of course, that's not a bad thing. It can be so much easier to take care of matters using the SSA website: www.socialsecurity.gov. I remember when I filed my Social Security claim about 10 years ago, it took me all of about half an hour to finish the process. And I did it while sitting at my computer desk in my pajamas!

Back when I started working for the SSA in 1973, of course, no one showed up at the office in their PJs! In fact, people tended to get dressed up for a visit to a government office like Social Security. (Remember when people dressed up to travel by plane or train?)

Once the person was at my desk to file a claim for Social Security benefits, I would pull out the appropriate paper application form. asking them all the questions and filling in the answers for them. They would sign the form, provide me with any documents they might have brought along (such as a birth certificate), which I photocopied, returned to them, and then they were on their way.

I would then hand the application form and supporting documents to my secretary. (I'm sure those secretarial positions no longer exist in the modern SSA.) She - and it was always a she - would type up a little "tally strip" with the claimant's name and SSN and place it on my "tally board" (a small metal flip-top device) with all the other tally strips indicating the claims that I had pending at my desk.

The secretary would then order the "earnings record" for the claimant's SSN. This had previously been done by mail. But we had recently moved on to the modern marvel of a teletype machine. (Gosh, we thought that was so futuristic!) About a week or so later, the earnings record would show up in the mail for the claim. It showed all the earnings recorded to the claimant's SSN. And we would use those earnings to tabulate the person's Social Security benefit.

These calculations frequently got pretty complicated and messy. That's why each Social Security office had a dedicated staff of benefit computation experts who would figure up what the claimant was due in monthly benefits. She (and once again, I remember these experts always being women) would prepare a benefit award form that I — as the claims-taking technician — would sign.

Then, once I had gathered any other evidence I might need for the claim (maybe a marriage record, for example), we would mail the claim and all supporting documents to the "payment center." There were about six or seven such centers around the country. That's where the claim resided for the rest of its life, and that's where buttons were pushed that would start sending out monthly checks to the claimant. The whole process usually took two or three months, if not longer.

Today, of course, all of this happens electronically and can happen in a matter of days. Although for a whole variety of reasons, even today, claims can get delayed and take a longer process. But still, the modern online electronic world is so much faster and more efficient than our paper-oriented world a half-century ago.

I also think back to things like a simple change of address. Today, you can go online and essentially make the change instantly. But back in my early days with the SSA, changes of address were mailed to the payment center and could take weeks to process.

I remember two SSA forms that, for some reason, I can still recall their numbers. One was the SSA-2339. Let's say you came into an office and had a question about how your benefit was figured. If I couldn't figure it out, I would fill out this 2339 form by hand, essentially saying something like: "This guy wants to know how his benefit was figured." Then that would get mailed to the payment center. And maybe a month or so later, I would get back a handwritten response and, assuming I could read it, I would call the beneficiary with an explanation.

And then there was the SSA-555. We would use that if the inquiry was "critical." For example, if you complained that you didn't get a check this month, I would fill out the SSA-555 — and I would still mail it to the payment center for a response. I guess that because the form was bright pink and had the words CRITICAL CASE in bold letters, it was handled more quickly. But still, thinking back, that seems like such a ho-hum way of dealing with a "critical" issue. Once again, things are so much more efficient today in the online world.

Gosh, do I feel like an old geezer talking about those "good old days" that were not always so good after all!

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called "Social Security — Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security." The other is "Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts." You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at [email protected]. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Jose Losada at Unsplash