Thank You Magic Civil Servant Supervisor Lady!
So, I called California’s DMV and I got through on the second call. I navigated through the phone tree, and spoke with a woman who was exceedingly friendly. She confirmed that I’m still blocked by Palo Alto, there was nothing she could do, but she managed to fill me in on the details of the incident. It was 9/8/01. You don’t remember? Well, that’s over two years ago … wait … that’s near 9/11/01, which was a few days after I crashed my car. Apparently, in the haze of frustration with being broke, unemployed, and car-less I was supposed to go to court to explain myself for driving in to the poorly-lit obstacle upon which I crashed my car. Ah! So, I’m being haunted by the ghost of one of the darker weeks of my life! So be it!
So, I called up Palo Alto and after a few years on hold got to spoke to a public servant who was moved from indifference to compassion, because after all the abstract was mailed to DMV a month ago, and it got lost in a purple haze somewhere, there’s nothing to be done, but send them another abstract, which means another $12 fee, via certified check, which itself costs $5, or running a friend around again …
… so she gave me the phone number of the supervisor, and told me to call her after 2PM CST, when she would be back from lunch. If anyone could do anything, this lady had the power to print out a copy of the abstract and fax it to DMV directly. I’ve just gotten off the phone with the woman who has the magical power to print out a document and put it in the fax machine. She told me I should contact the DMV in another week’s time and see if they had managed to receive and process her facsimile. Huzzah! Gratitude! Thank You Magic Civil Servant Supervisor Lady!
In other news, I received a package in the mail today. Mom’s mouse pad had turned in to the skank, so last time I ordered prints, I ordered a custom mouse pad with a picture of Madeline, Mom’s cat, on it. I threw out the scummy old pad, and slipped in the new one, on the idea that she’ll get a kick out of it when she gets home.
I also have a fairly promising lead for a job that sounds pretty cool, thanks to good old-fashioned good will from good old-fashioned networking with an old colleague. I shant elaborate on that just yet, so as to avoid jinxing anything. There’s been a bit of that going on this year.
Oh, I have a tip for those who are calling somewhere with a phone tree and they’ll be waiting on hold. Of course, you’ve got a note pad in front of you for such calls, right? Well, first thing you put on that note pad is the number you are dialing. Then you leave space just below that to jot down what numbers you press to get through the phone tree. That way, if you get tired of holding, or disconnected, or have to call them back, you can get through the tree quicker without listening to a bunch of boring, long-ass recordings. The Palo Alto Courthouse is especially annoying, because before they tell you the numbers, there’s this long spiel about what sort of cases they handle in what local municipalities. I can feel my life force being shredded slowly and painfully whenever I have to sit through that just to hit another damn number so I can listen to the next long informational recording, and so on and so forth in hopes that some day I will have the great privilege to wait on hold to speak to a human being. Whew.
