Friday, January 25, 2013

Dirty, Mean & Vicious

Whoever thought of the organizational system for the Department of Motor Vehicles was a sick, sick person.
It seems like a good idea to have all the required vehicular services in one place and it would appear to be convenient to allow people to renew licenses and vehicles online but it really is just the first steps in their scheme to drive us all insane.
After going to the website and filling out the forms, paying the fees and printing my receipt I waited.
And waited.
And then the registration on my car expired while I was waiting and now I tremble in fear every time a police officer drives by.
Today I finally had enough time to call the "help" number and it seemed quaint that they offered me a callback option. That is, if I left my number in the phone tree queue, the DMV would call me back in less than an hour. It sounded good so I followed the simple instructions and waited.
Sure enough, less than an hour later I was called back but it wasn't a person it was the phone tree and it wouldn't accept my entry, even though it was the number the message told me to press and then I was told I had exceeded my number of attempts (I pressed it only 3 times) and they hung up on me.
So I called the original number back and while I was trying to get an actual person - they didn't have an option for "I really need my stickers now please" - the callback number called me again and I gave it a second try and AGAIN it wouldn't recognize ANY of the numbers I pressed and AGAIN it hung up on me.
So I called AGAIN and this time opted for a real person where I would have to sit on hold for an hour and wait for them.
Which I did.
When a real person answered I told him my dilemma, he said it wasn't a problem, he would transfer me to the department that could re-issue my stickers. I heard the hold music for a few bars and then I was back in the phone tree again, looking for a real person AGAIN and I had to wait ANOTHER hour and then when I did get a person - much more helpful than the last - she said they can't transfer to other departments and all I need to do is go to AAA and they will get me my stickers.
Done.

This is me and bureaucracy blows...a lot.

2 comments:

Cath said...

Methinks it's just your state bureaucracy; AZ's online DMV stuff is amazing. AND our license's are good til we turn 65.

Anonymous said...

Wo! Excellent atorytelling. Have you ever considered a career in instruction manual writing? Well done.

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