Quote of the Day: “It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”
- H. L. Mencken
You know, I don’t ask for much. But one thing I do kind of expect is basic knowledge in your job and a desire to do away with apathy.
Wait, I was dealing with the Department of Licensing, what was I thinking?
Let me set this up so we are all on the same page.
I had a couple of issues, all of which swirled together to make the shit soup I was dealing with as a whole.
First, I needed tabs for my Honda Pilot. OK, fine, simple enough. I live in Washington so I need Washington tabs. So far, not a big deal.
Second, I needed to change the title over.
The mitigating spices in this “soup de fecal” was that my title was ISSUED in California where I last registered it but HELD in Virginia where I bought it.
Turns out that solving this little factoid was analogous to sending a man to Pluto in a Dixie Cup.
I made sure I got smog checked …. Don’t get me started on that one…. oops, too late … why don’t I just roll that into the total cost and just hand you $15 so we can save the little passion play where we pretend to check my emissions? Do we really have to pretend we are doing something necessary? It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Anyway, I called up the DOL to make sure all this would go smoothly and after asking many questions, obvious and otherwise, I was hitting them back with answers like a tennis player against a serving machine.
I was set with all my documentation and made my way to The Office Where Hope Goes To Die.
I do have to give out even just a little kudos here. The lady behind the desk was the senior worker in the office that, truth be told, I would hate to work out. Talk about a Sadness Factory. They have to deal with people like me every day but for some reason, I got the feeling they had been and will be squashing the same chairs for decades because it’s a gubmint job where quality assurance and customer service are not at the top of the job description.
Anyway, the senora did make a valiant effort to get me through but the whole issued-in-California and held-in-Virginia proved to be a bridge too far. After calling the higher headquarters who put the kibosh on the simple solution, I was sent away to deal with Honda, who held the title.
Great, now I had a whole other set of bureaucracy to work with.
I swear to God that at one point, I had Honda telling me they couldn’t do anything until the DOL acted and DOL telling me the same about Honda. Each told me what the other SHOULD be doing and told me how to handle the other.
What? Have them connect and hash it out themselves? Why didn’t I think of that?
That was another easy solution but to do so would somehow rip open the very fabric of space and time.
The underlying issue was that I didn’t have the title so the DOL would not issue me a new one. They wanted a faxed copy but this common approach seemed to Honda like Chinese calculus written in Latin.
It seems that the holding entity for Honda kept electronic titles so to get a copy would take WEEKS!!!!
To the DOL, this was an occurrence that happened less times than an Immaculate Conception.
You know your life has taken a downward spiral when you get the “This has never happened before” whether it be computers, tabs for your vehicle, or most disturbingly, medical issues.
Come on people, you can’t tell me this is going to kick your ass. You have been squashing the same chairs for decades and you can’t tell me I am the FIRST person in all of humankind to have this situation. How about you, oh, I don’t kow, SOLVE this. Your job isn’t just procedure, it’s problem solving.
I’ll say that again so that it sinks through a little deeper: Problem … SOLVING.
OK, are you ready for the next wrinkle? I am on the cusp of paying off my Honda so along with all the other fecal floaters in this shit soup, add in that if I order a copy of my title, it will be juuuuust around the time that they would pull it and send it to me after sending in the last payment.
You think it’s a convoluted mess now, I had to imagine what would happen if, the middle of the assclownery of pulling a copy coincided within a couple of days of them closing the payment account and sending my title to me as a normal procedure, what that would result in. I can only guess, nuclear Armageddon.
Oh, and they would only send the COPY to the DOL and the ORIGINAL, when paid off, to me.
I figure it would end up in Indonesia.
So what they are offering is that one fucked up entity (holding company in Virginia) sends a copy and/or original to another fucked up entity (Honda) and then they send it to a third fucked up entity (Washington DOL) and I am supposed to waltz in there and expect it to be there so I can complete the paperwork.
I really didn’t want to do this. In protest, I looked up the mailing address to the DOL. It was a PO box.
Fucked Up Entity #2: “Sorry, we can’t send it to a PO box. We use UPS so it has to be a physical address so someone can sign for it.”
God, why are you doing this to me?
I called the DOL to see if I could have it sent to their physical offices.
Fucked Up Entity #3: “What?, no, they need to send it to the PO box.”
Really, God? Really?
I convinced them to accept it but now, in addition to the above unlikely plan, add to it that the DOL workers would be getting a as-yet-never-before-attempted mailing which they would have to receive, know what to do with, and have on hand when I make my way in to complete the paperwork.
I gave better odds to Paris Hilton becoming a Rhodes Scholar.
Now I know you think I am exaggerating here but I assure you, I have even left details out for the sake of brevity (I know, big fail). This whole process went on and on and on. I was like a ping pong ball in a marathon tournament.
In the end, they took so long, I got my last payment posted and the title was sent to the DOL. They had given me a temporary plate with temporary tabs (I noted they took my money right away but to get the plates was gonna take the above heartache. Do you think they would accept temporary payment? I think not.)
I hesitated during my 10th and final trip to The Office Where Hope Goes To Die when I broached the subject of military plates. It was quite a bit more but I wanted Marine plates. I also paid more for the military award stickers. I got to chose two.
A few weeks later, the plates arrived and I got them on my Pilot. After all the pain, I was finally sporting Washington plates, Washington tabs, and Washington titles on all three of my vehicles.
Wow, THAT was easy.
Free Advice for Today: “Take a kid to the zoo.”
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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