Dan’s Corner of the Internet

Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind! Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign? Sorry, got carried away there for a sec. People never cease to amaze me. I had to go to the DMV the other day to renew the tags on my car and decided that I’d be smart and get there as it opened so I could zip in and zip out. Well the joke was on me because they had actually opened an hour before and a lot of other people had the same idea I did. So I dutifully grab my number and sit down and wait to be called.

Now I don’t know about you but I don’t mind going to the DMV, it’s a great place to people watch. Ok, that’s a lie, I hate going to the DMV and since I thought I was getting there as it opened I didn’t bring my book with me as I  usually would but if I had I probably wouldn’t be writing this. There were the usual group you expect to find there, the single parent with the bored kid, the creepy guy who trys to start a conversation with everyone about nothing, and the people who just looked pissed off at the world because they have to take time out of their day and spend it at the DMV.

For this story to make much sense I suppose I should describe the layout of my local DMV. The desks are layed out like an L, with cubicles all along both sides and at the bottom of the L there is a station set up specifically for people who just need to renew their tags. This was the hotspot of action on Monday. At eight in the morning the DMV is running on a skeleton crew, they had four or five people working and about twenty people waiting. At the renewal station there are three, count them three signs that state clearly “This station is closed, please take a number and sit down” and one lone sign that says open. It’s amazing to me how selective human sight can be.

I was there about half an hour maybe forty minutes and in that time I counted no less than six people who went up to the express station, stand there, look around for someone to help them and then get pissed because no one did. Hello? Three signs people!! What part of closed doesn’t make sense? One older lady got so irritated that no one jumped up from their current customer to rush over to a closed station and assist her she stormed out in a huff. I was both greatly amused and dumbfounded by this, on the one hand how can you not see the fact that everyone is with a customer and theres  no one around to help you but on the other it just goes to show how self important people really think they are. One person had decided regardless of whether anyone was there to help her or not she was going to wait there till someone did.

So finally around Eight-thirty, the other employee’s start to trickle in and set up their stations for the day. Well the impatient renewal people are now about five thick and are getting more and more impatient at the closed station that is supposed to magically open for them because damn it their time is more important than yours! I’m watching the number display overhead and thinking that by the time someone finally does get to these folks they would be pretty close to getting to a rep by now.

Just as they are calling my number, someone finally notices the line and takes pity on them and decides to open the express line for them. As I was walking out, laughing to myself the first person who was so dead set on waiting in the express lane was told she had to get a number and wait for another rep to help her. I guess there is karma in the world after all.