5005 The ultimate bureaucracy

Friday, September 11, 2015

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."

-- Eric Hoffer --

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My driver's license expires the end of this month.  They sent me the renewal form early last month.  All I had to do was sign it, and mail it back in with a check, and they'd reuse the old photo and send me the new permit.

Well, of course I procrastinated, and found it while writing checks for this month's bills.  I was afraid that if I mailed it now, I might not get the new one before the old expired.

So I decided to just sign the form, write the check, and hand-deliver it to the local DMV office.  They could just do their thing and mail it to me.

Not so simple.

I had the Nugget that day, so we went off to run some errands and have a Gramma-Nugget lunch.  First stop was the DMV.

I have to congratulate the kid.  She was very good while we waited in THREE different lines at the DMV.  They wanted six points of identification (my old driver's license wasn't sufficient), and they insisted on a new photo.  The Nugget danced and sang to entertain people in line.

Now, the process made no sense at all.  If I had mailed the form, there would have been no verification of my id at all.  But if I'm standing there with my state-issued photo id -- look, it's ME! -- I have to further prove who I am?

I don't understand.

Yeah, ok, the difference is that with the mail-in form, they send the license to the "address of record", as opposed to handing it to a person who claims to be me.  But really, there isn't that much difference, and besides, they could have mailed it anyway, right?

They made me take the new photo without my glasses on, and it's absolutely awful.  I wasn't planning on a photo, so I wore no makeup, and my hair was pulled straight back from my face.  Then without the glasses, my eyes looked red and swollen and I looked like I'd had a very bad night.

All license photos look bad because of the flat lighting, but I've never seen one this bad.  Even the Nugget, who isn't old enough at 4 to dissemble, looked at the photo and asked who that was.  

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The definition of a bureaucrat is one who follows a set of procedures to the letter.  No deviations allowed, no thinking allowed.
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1210 Annoyed

Monday, April 16, 2007

I'm getting very annoyed at all the "Monday morning quarterbacking" regarding the officials' response to the Virginia Tech shootings, especially regarding the lack of a lockdown during the two hours between the two sets of shootings.

They knew what they knew when they knew it, and did what seemed right at the time. They had no reason to think that it was other than an isolated and personal crime of passion. Sheesh! Nothing like criticizing actions based on later knowledge, huh? It's easy and fun.

Yes, looking at procedures and seeing if something could/should have been done differently is proper, but that should be done by those intimate with the situation, not by TV reporters! This kind of ripping and laying blame only leads to "cook books", where people aren't allow to make decisions, and are forced to follow paper procedures, and then if something goes wrong, you can just point to the paper and say - "I followed procedure." NOT the best solution! It leads to overreactions.

I'm also getting very annoyed at some Christian station that's been breaking into my television reception for the past four days. I get gray snow and Bible-thumping shouting instead of news and weather. You get that when self-righteous idiots broadcast a wider signal than they're allowed. I'd report them if I could figure out who they are.
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