Licensed to...

A second-day lede on yesterday's item on the rights of salamanders, et al. The State of New Jersey, which goes out of its way to allow salamanders of all sexual orientations to mate, but only recognizes the unions of opposite-sex human couples, has given your humble blogger the same rights as the salamanders: I get to use the roads, too. I'm unlikely to exercise the driving privilege much, as one must be a native New Jerseyan (i.e., "guy") to be able to navigate the place: the road signs here, when there are any at all, are even more obtuse than the ones in California, where "west" and "Orange" are considered opposite directions.

The New Jersey licensing process is now the new New Jersey licensing process, although only some of the bureaus have the new digital equipment. The guy next to me was a native "guy" with an existing analog license, and he wanted to swap it for one of the new ones. He showed me his old one, and I couldn't believe it: no picture. None. Not digital. Not analog. None. It looked like something a high-school kid could have forged back when I was in high school (in those days, the "copy machine" was called a "mimeograph."

In the process of improving the process, the motor vehicles bureau has changed some things but not everything. Some parts of the process now take longer than they did before the switch to digital. Some take less time, and some may no longer be necessary. But as one bureau employee explained today, they haven't necessarily adapted the rest of the process to the new gee-whiz digital gizmos, so sometimes there's way more that enough time between one step and the next, and other times there isn't possibly enough. Then she handed me yet another set of papers, told me to go fill them out and then wait until my name was called. I had barely stepped away from the counter when I heard my name. I responded in keeping with local customs: "You talkin' to me?"

"You Janet?" The bureaucrat replied, answering my question with a question.

"Yes."

"Your application, please."

"I haven't had a chance to fill it out yet -- your colleague just gave it to me less than a minute ago."

"Go fill it out and then come back up here."

I guess I was too slow. As I rushed back to the counter with my quickly-filled-in form, the worker walked away. Very, very slowly, she walked over to the time clock on the far wall, where she punched out for a break. She noticed me standing there as she walked -- very, very slowly -- to what I presume was the break room. More than half an hour later, one of the other workers there noticed that no one was working that position, and as a result, the lines weren't moving properly. No one could use the fancy digital gizmo until the worker returned, because it was registered to her thumbprint alone and she hadn't bothered to log out when she clocked out. She had to interrupt her break to log out so that someone else could log in and do her job. But then she went right back to her break. As all this was going on, several other employees were announcing to their colleagues that they were going home early, and they did.

"You should see it here on Thursday evening," the native Jersey guy said. "That's the only night they're open late. I tried to get in here last week, and the line was around the block."
  ¶ 5:38 PM |