How dumb is government?

I have known intelligent, caring, hardworking government employees. I have also met the other kind, and all I can say is, the unemployment and welfare departments would be over run if those people didn't have a job that required nothing more than the ability to fog a mirror.

So, if you squint really hard, and don't apply any logic, it almost looks like those jobs are keeping your taxes down...

In reply to RX Reven':

Thanks! It is an interesting business.

This sounds like the diligent public servant did everything right. She needs a legible name. She just assumed a fine gentleman that the OP is, that he would print legibly. I guess her hopes were too high, so after getting his request processed super fast, she took a look at her sign in sheet and felt let down that he didn't do the bare minimum of writing his name in a legible way.

Reasons for needing this include:

• Insuring First in first served.
• Confirm the customer was served rather than signed in but left before service. Helps weed out returning 1st requests due to long wait times versus repeat visits.
• If someone submits a FOIAor supena to confirm that the work was done properly the office has legible chain of proof that they did their job.
• Statistical database uses the sign in sheet as part of the dataset to help the agency understand what services are used and when to help with planning human resources, automation, software development, and how many of x form to buy each year.

Government I actually love it. Just need to keep it running right.

In reply to Advan046:

Good points. If her supervisor is watching they will probably make her get a copy of his Id in the future and make sure it matches the sign in sheet.

Wall-e wrote: In reply to Advan046: Good points. If her supervisor is watching they will probably make her get a copy of his Id in the future and make sure it matches the sign in sheet.

Ugh adding biometric data such as a photo on the drivers license would transition the status of all the documents in the transaction to protected PII status. Thus they need to now have secured chain of custody, secured file storage, a higher level of security for the computer systems storing the files. The cost versus benefit to the public isn't worth proceeding with that plan. But luckily we are in the 21st century so instead simply scanning the barcode on the drivers's license would confirm the identity and eliminate the cost of managing a paper sign in sheet.

Submit your improvement idea in the idea box on the way out!

I ranted about a government agency instructing me to switch from paying them monthly to quarterly back on page two…I actually was contacted by them earlier in the week asking for clarification about the period my last check covered.

Um, well, the period would pretty much be exactly what the detailed remittance slip I included indicated…you know, that computer printout thingy that tells you by machine the day I collected, the previous day I collected, what the meter readings were on both dates, the delta between the two meter readings, how much revenue came in, any maintenance / repairs I performed….you know, that computer printout thingy…it’s really handy, you might want to take a gander at one some time.

CA DMV website; forgot password... click forgot password link, my user ID is not in the system or needs to be updated. I have the correct User ID, checked my email from when I registered. Click the update link, it says "forgot your User ID? create a new account!" Click create new account, enter in info including 5(!) security questions and hit submit. "Your DL# is already registered, if you forgot your password, click to retrieve your password." Right.

Called tech support. "Oh, the re-register/update account page and register new account page are identical, you need to go to the login page and click forgot user name and use that form" So... forms are identical and links to each are phrased exactly the same, but they're different? ok.