Driver's License Nightmare

Just skip this rant if you want to... not that skipping my blog posts isn't always my personal recommendation.

Let me start by saying the Texas DPS website provides a lot of info, but many vital things are missing or incredibly difficult to find. I went there. I searched it. I know what's on there inside and out regarding drivers' licenses.

When I called the S. Congress DPS location the other day, it took forever to get through and the person who finally answered was very curt and told me we needed to get there very very early (like 5am) to schedule a driving test. I called the Lamar location to see if they scheduled driving tests over the phone or something more logical than lining up at 5am, and I got a helpful recording along with an option to speak with a person. That was the person who informed me that Lauren didn't even need to take the road test. After that more customer-service-oriented experience, I decided it might be smart to go to the Lamar location for the license instead. People online had said you can go to any office, even one outside your county.

So I picked Lauren up after first period and we headed up there around the recommended 10am time slot to miss the long lines. It took about 30 minutes to get through the main line (awesome!), where the info guy was about to hand me a number (to get in the next line) when a supervisor happened to look over his shoulder and said, "She can't get a license here because she got her learner's permit at the Congress location. She has to go there to get it."

I asked them---- Seriously? No one could have mentioned that? And what if we had moved to Dallas- still she has to go to the Congress location?

And do you think I got an "I'm sorry no one told you" or "Sorry you had to drive up north and spend 30 minutes in a pointless government line"? Heck no. I didn't even get a reply at all. Just two creepy, empty stares.

So we drove down to Congress, arriving around 11:15, at the lunch hour. Ended up waiting two and a half hours to get to the counter. There were 7 spaces for clerks to handle customers, but never more than three clerks working at a time. Most of the time there were only two. On a positive note, the person we ended up with was very nice and Lauren was of course thrilled to finally get that license in her hand.

The woman we were talking to in the Congress line was getting a driver's license and then going to the Social Security office downtown. Poor thing.

And people want the government to run health care. Omg.