living in birmingham has its advantages: minimal traffic, decent restaurants, beautiful scenery; however, the people who work in the public sector of this little city make me wonder how they manage not to scrape their knuckles every time they walk. this week i went to the downtown courthouse to renew my vehicle tag. when i arrive i am the sixth person in line and there are three tellers at the counter. i think to myself “awesome, i’ll get out of here and still have time to stop at milo’s to grab a gut-busting 64 ounce sweet tea”.

there i go being all optimistic.

thirty minutes goes by and only two people in the line have been seen. at one point one of the tellers gets up, and takes her ipod over to two chatting employees. it is now high noon and the line swells to 15 more people. the teller who got up has looked at the line a couple of times but continues to gossip. and then she does something that completely amazes me, though it really shouldn’t have: she grabs her coat and goes on break! if i had a client in my office and just got up and went on break, my boss would string me up by my ears and then fire me.

several people see this and leave the line, but not me. i am determine to stay here and update my tag. i am a rock of resolve. i will stay in this line all afternoon if i have to! i am now the second person in line and i have been in this sweltering room for 45 minutes. my feet are starting to hurt from standing in a stationary position. the little old lady next to me is starting to sweat and takes out a hanky and wipes her forehead. i ask if she’s okay and she drawls “why yes deary, i’m just a little harried”. i wonder aloud “are they having to make the tags back there?”. the little old lady grins at me.

after another 15 minutes i finally make it to the front of the line and i hear “next!”. i let out a sigh of relief and the little old lady mumbles “about damn time”. i get up to the teller, renew my tag and hightail it out of there. elapsed time: one hour, 15 minutes.

now here is my question: at the busiest time of day why would you only have two tellers to handle a slew of customers? it makes no sense! where is their manager? it seems only rational that they would enforce a policy that during peak hours no less than three tellers be on the line. and the thing that really pisses me off is that while 20 people are standing there employees are coming and going through the door to god knows where. can’t they see that this is grossly inefficient? no, they turn a blind eye because it doesn’t involve them or it isn’t their job. these employees are so apathetic it is disturbing.

oh, and because i had spent my entire lunch break standing in line i didn’t get my sweet tea. bastards!