How dense could I be?

I thought I would use my lunch hour to renew my driver license, given that it expired on my birthday. Now, granted, I don't have a car these days, but I rent the occasional one or end up driving some one else's for them. One also needs a driver license (or state sanctioned I.D.) to travel by air these days, so I am forced into dealing with the bureaucracy. The last time I renewed in-person (ten years ago) the process was about an hour total with a bit of waiting time. Ultimately it was made entertaining by my cousin who worked at the DMV then, and whom I had not seen in a very long time.

This time around, however, I took one step into one of three Driver License Division offices and turned right back around and went back to work: the place was packed and there was very little evidence of movement. People were hanging out on the counters, it was so back-logged. There were also quite a few people who were obviously huffy about the egregious wait-time. I didn't get huffy, per se, I just realized that this was never going to work for me today.

But you've got to love cheap-skate Utah: people bitch and moan about the few taxes they pay, and then bitch and moan about the problems that their smallgubment! antics cause. There are a total of 3 driver license offices in Salt Lake County, all open from 7 until 5:30 at night. They are utterly understaffed. The Salt Lake valley, according to the last census is just 25,000 short of 1,000,000 people. That's 3 locations for roughly 36,000 people who have a birthday any given month in this state. Half that (18,000) and you get the number of people who have to visit the DMV to renew their license in-person per month. This doesn't account, of course, for the folks who are there for other reasons at any given moment.

It looks like I'll have to take the day off to renew my little-used driver license.