the disservicers

Over on his blog, KJM has been writing of his frustrations with people who give "service" except they don't.

I've been mildly frustrated of late when the escalators between the parking garage and subway station are closed down during rush hour. How con-VEEEEN-ient. Most days, my ankles and knees can handle the five flights of concrete steps down. Some days they can't. On those days, I take the World's Slowest Elevator.

But today, oh my. It's time to get my license renewed. Half the time, you can renew over the Web. Every other time, though, you have to go to the registry in person to read the top line of letters; note which colors are green, red, and yellow; and have your picture retaken. Since I'm working in the city, I thought it would be fairly easy to hop over to a local registry.

I had a choice of two offices, one a subway ride away, and one a "limited service branch" a brisk walk away. They weren't kidding about that "limited" part.

It turns out that when you arrive, there are signs everywhere, some legible but against far walls, some closer, but in tiny writing. People were spilling all over the place. I noticed they were serving a particular number, so I asked someone where I could get a number. He said that I had to stand in line to ask permission first; otherwise I'd be yelled at.

So when the woman taking care of the line finally decided to come out of suspended animation and ask if she could help me, I told her why I was there and she replied that I had to get a ticket but she used a tone of voice implying that I should have known that. I said that I'd heard I would get yelled at if I just went and got a ticket and she said "That is true," as if it's perfectly reasonable for a public servant to yell at confused clients whom they are supposed to be serving.

So I took my ticket and sat down. And waited and waited and waited. There were long breaks between handling each client (it must be quite draining, poor dears). One of the women behind the counter was noisily eating potato chips out of a giant and seemingly bottomless bag and talking (and yelling at people) with her mouth full. Yuck. Another woman appeared to have some kind of OCD problem and was busily wiping down every surface and glopping her hands with alcohol cleaner through every transaction. What a bad mix!

There was a sign that said that if you left your cell phone on, the computers would crash and the system would come to a halt. This must be very modern equipment; I've never heard of that happening before. Every now and then, someone's cell phone would ring in the hallway and potato chip woman would bellow out "TURN YOUR CELLPHONES OFF NOW!"

Admittedly, there were some delays caused by people who had failed to read some tiny sign or who had somehow managed to miss the desk with forms on it (because the desk was in a dark corner *behind them*). But most of us were in total compliance with the official rules and the unofficial ones and we still couldn't make any progress through the process.

Perhaps the saddest case was a guy who may have been 25 but looked like he had suffered a stroke. He could barely walk, even with a cane. He waited and waited, teetering on his unstable feet until someone was good and ready to give him information. And then it turned out that this office couldn't help him; he had to go to a "full-service" office instead. They weren't exactly mean about it, but they weren't very nice either. And it was bloody cold today with high winds, not the kind of day that someone with that level of disability should be out in.

Oh, another excellent feature of my experience was that they had two "stations" open, and they looked to be identically equipped. But they were not taking people in turn -- they divided us into two "lines", to go to each of the two stations, with each one assigned to different tasks.

Finally, it was my turn. I walked up to an incredibly obese woman (and I'm sorry, but she was chomping on a chocolate bar the whole time she was dealing with me). She looked up and started whining about how very very tired she was. It was *really* hard to feel sorry for her, especially because she was keeping the line moving nice and slowly. Potato chip woman was, at this point, on a personal phone call, animatedly mouthing reports about the call to chocolate woman.

I somehow got through the entire application, received my temporary license, and beat a hasty retreat. Had I not finished college at this point, I'd be mighty inspired right about now.

Now wouldn't it be nice if the Registry of Motor Vehicles spent some of its PR money -- the money used to send out press releases touting how improved their offices are -- on some inspections to verify that this is indeed the case?