As if Monday’s encounter with the bureaucrats from Hell wasn’t bad enough, I had to return to the State Office building today. I swear these people need to play yoga DVDs on some kind of continuous loop to keep we mere mortals from going insane.
Next Wednesday (March 12th) is my 50th birthday. In West Virginia, your driver’s license expires every five years — on your birthday. Since they charge an extra 18 bucks if you allow the doggone thing to expire, I knew I had to take care of renewing it this week. Today was the day to go to the DMV.
They send out renewal notices, complete with two lists of acceptable forms of identification. We have to prove both that we are who we say we are — and that we live where we say we live. No, my current, unexpired West Virginia Driver’s License is NOT enough to do both. Go figure.
Anyway, because we don’t get home mail delivery in the town where we live, everybody has a post office box. Most of my paperwork (bills, etc) lists my PO Box (not my street address) because the companies want our mailing address — and because the Postmaster asked us all to use the box numbers whenever possible.
The State won’t accept that. Seems they’ve encountered somebody who rented a box but lived out of state — and somebody else who mounted a mailbox in front of a vacant lot. Why anyone would do either of these things escapes me, but my forms of identification were not acceptable. All the utilities are in BJ’s name, not mine, so I was up the proverbial creek.
Fortunately, it’s been awhile since I cleaned out the Jeep, so I found something with my street address on it. After clearing that hurdle, I had to stand in line for about twenty minutes to pay the renewal fee because all the people in front of me had failed to answer all the questions on their forms and took forever. Then, it was back to the “I can’t use this ID” lady to get my picture taken.
I’m glad this won’t roll around again until 2013. I don’t think my poor heart can take too much more.
OK, First of all You need to take a deep breath and relax!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are going to stress yourself right into another heart attack. You know once you hit 50 next week it is all downhill. I will be 52 and feel 102. So while you still have time left enjoy the under 50 bracket! I have decided that at the job I have I bend over backwards to treat people the best I can and to get my job done as correctly and quickly as I can to make life easier for my clients.
When I go somewhere to get service, unless the person I am looking at is 45 and above the usual is an “I don’t care about you or your problem” attitude. Being patient is not easy for me because I want to tell them to give it to me and I’ll do it. I swear they forgot to teach customer relations along the way somewhere. The younger generation only care about themselves and their cell phone connections.
I think once the over 45 crowd gets out of the work force this whole country is doomed.
But on a lighter note, I’ve learned to just go with the flow “cause we ain’t gonna change ‘em.”
My personal opinion only,
I know you’re right, Terri, but you know how poorly I suffer idiots. And it’s my tax dollars that pay these yahoos’ salaries. AAARRGH!!!!!!
Yep. Right there with you. By the way I found out Mrs. Bricker did not pass away only Mr. Bricker. My Step mom’s info was incorrect.
Well, that’s some small comfort, at least.
FYI for everybody else: The parents of somebody we have known since high school were hit head-on by a drunk driver. ‘Nuff said?