There’s an aura of difficulty and stubbornness that seems to surround the Department of Motor Vehicles, at least in many peoples’ minds. I’ll admit, I was feeling a little stressed when I entered this morning, thanks to their succinct instructions:
- Take a number
- Fill out a form
- Wait for your number to be called
I always liked #2 the best, as though as long as you were filling out some sort of form, you were fine. But my problem is that I’m completely helpless in situations like this, and so I wasn’t sure what form to fill out to change my address (answer: new license application).
But I think much of the stigma comes from the gruff-ish attitude of the staff there, as though they don’t need your business. Truth is, they’re just trying to get stuff done, same as everybody. They want to continue to proceed in an orderly fashion, so if that means you have to leave the window to fill out another form, deal with it.
Fortunately, I made sure to fill out the forms I thought I might need just in case, which put me on the fast track to new license-ism. Hotness.
The most important thing to remember when visiting the DMV is the thing that causes most people to stress out: don’t be in a hurry. The nicer you are, the nicer everybody else is. I had to laugh (internally) at the huffy girl after me in the line to get a new license, acting as though having to wait in line or write things was super-hard.
anthony said:
I wish for my days back in Wisconsin, where it was so much less difficult to have a license in your wallet than here in Texas.
Here, you do all the forms, wait in all the lines, but then you wait TWO WEEKS for them to mail you a plastic card that Wisconsin gives you in a few minutes.
Ah Texas… Everything here is big, especially the expensive Red Tape.
Is Wisconsin still that efficient?
22:39 on 15 Mar 2007
matches said:
I guess it is… I mean, my stuff took about an hour but that was mostly due to lines. But I walked out of there with everything I needed, so I call it a win.
06:59 on 16 Mar 2007