Nerve Endings Firing Away

Last week, my poor ‘ol car got a confidence boost when PC passed his road test. That made the score for people using my car for road tests nicely even. After tolerating widely varying driving skills of 5 people, the score stands at 3-3. Yup, one of them failed it twice but hopefully MV passes it next time. The DMV is as close as it gets to experiencing government bureaucracy at its worst and I guess is the only time you are reminded of government babus back in India.

But after nearly being a regular at the local DMV, I can understand their frustrated and tired looks. They have to endure the same stinky monotonous job day in and out. Little variation and whimsical customers from all walks of life does not make it any easier. We saw a poor hassled woman trying to give an anatomical lesson to a supposedly new immigrant from Mexico, explaining which finger was his right index fingers. He just laid all of them out with a puzzling look. Another road test examiner came back frazzled and white as a sheet when a teenager nearly killed her by almost driving through the wall. Communicating in sign language has never been more important when the poor Middle Eastern girl didn’t understand the simple word “Stop!” Or maybe it was just a bad case of nerves. But then such half-baked drivers, overconfident teens, and English-illiterate immigrants are regulars in this metro Atlanta DMV office. Couple of hours at the DMV is enough to make me lose my cool and blow my top. These guys have to tolerate inanity every day. I can only sympathize with the poor employees.

I don’t expect things to change when I take my next newbie driver for the road-test. I just want to improve my car’s score.