Fasten your seatbelts.
Because
‘Oh…Mostly because we can. Now do you want to get your car registered or not?’
I’m going to tell you a true story — that you simply won’t believe.
For context, you may be familiar with the theme of how the California Department of Motor Vehicles (“The DMV”) has a reputation for gigantic wait times; lines that similar to Mountain passes – take literally hours to traverse. And that’s when you make an appointment. Its worse if you don’t have an appointment, and you get scolded.
Along with staff so overworked, they barely have any sense of humanity, let alone a sense of humor.
Well, I am here to report the unbelievable.
Yesterday I showed up at our DMV (Seaside, California) at 4:30, half expecting it to be closed early, or to have a lumbering line of patrons packing the immense lobby. Then I would get to wait, joining the crowd in one of the hundreds of chairs – until my number came up. If I got lucky, my seat mates would have an interesting story or two.
I was hoping, that I might sneak in before they closed the doors, so then they’d have to help me – rather than throw me out.
Instead, I was greeted by no line at all !
Instead two helpful women stood behind a low desk. One asked what I wanted and made a single check on a very brief form and handed it to me. She told me I would be seen in a few minutes as my number was only two behind the number just called.
Let me emphasize, there was no long line and only a half dozen chairs in total; all empty. And only a handfull of hopeful drivers/citizens in the entire building.
As this astonished fellow sat down, they called the number before mine. After not even enough time to close my astonished mouth – my number popped up. Walking up to the station, the fellow greeted me kindly and made every effort to help me get what I needed without any excess charges !
About 10 minutes later, I walked out with registration completed for two cars !
To boil it down, I walked into the DMV at 4:30, dealt only with kind, very
helpful staff and they totally took care of me !
It was overall a pleasant experience !
Not kidding.
If they keep this up the California DMV is going to lose their reputation for awfulness.
They have my complete encouragement; even applause. Thank you.
This radical change of culture is astounding. I need to find out who made this to happen.
They should get a medal.
