Guest post: Waiting is the norm, just about everywhere
Grafic by Dan
Note from Dan: This came in Friday from John Arbogast, who lives in Roanoke. I have a bottomless well of sympathy for his observations.
By John K. Arbogast
I am a long-time media professional (now a “has-been”) who can’t spell and wants your current media celebrity status to bring more attention to 3 big problems that your June 7, 2012 column about the long lines and “less-than knowledgeable” clerks at the DMV reminded me of.
I too had a long wait at the DMV several weeks ago, even though my 2 waits, first in the line to get a number and second a wait before my assigned number came up, added up to only about a half hour instead of the longer wait that the 90-year-old woman who you mentioned in your 6/7/12 column experienced when working to get her voter ID switched from New Jersey.
Waiting seems to be THE NORM THESE DAYS at stores, at businesses, on the phone to businesses, in hospitals, getting medical help, public offices, and everywhere. This problem needs your media exposure.
As a consumer, I believe that the increased wait situation is a popular way for managers to hire [fewer] workers. This consumer believes that it is poor business management to make customers wait because the managers want to save money. This strategy makes us consumers victims. Has American CAPITALISM come to this???
Your 6/7/12 column mention that DMV clerks got signals crossed and that workers at DMV told the 90-year-old mom that they would mail to the mom her ID but mom had not received it yet at the time that you interviewed the daughter. This brought to my mind the second problem that needs your media exposure. There is an increased problem with “less-than-knowledgeable ” workers in America.
Just look at fast-food restaurants and at many stores in which “floor-walkers” can’t answer shoppers’ questions. It’s human to get signals crossed, but the clerk at the DMV who recently helped me didn’t know how to transfer the personalized Virginia license plate from the old car we sold that my wife used to drive to the car that I now drive, so she had to get help from another DMV worker.
Does American private as well as public businesses and schools need to spend more time and money for training new workers plus educating veteran workers as new procedures come out? Does American private as well as public businesses and schools need to spend more time and money for interviewing and hiring new workers?
I don’t believe that you have written about the third problem afflicting American consumers, which is the popular practice everywhere for making telephone callers press 1 for this, 2 for that, 3 for go jump in a lake, and so forth. It’s impossible for callers like 60-year-old me to reach a nurse, the doctor’s appointment scheduler or get answers from the health insurance company and many others.
Lucky callers have learned to touch a certain number to shorten their telephone agony from a long time down to only a short time spent jumping through hoops. People who use the computer might find different phone numbers to call.
Again, are American private as well as public businesses trying to save money buy buying a cumbersome telephone system to direct consumers rather than hiring more people to answer the phone?
June 11, 2012 - 6:00 AM
I enjoyed Mr. Arbogast’s letter. I gotta say, however, that only having to wait about 30 minutes at DMV from the time he walked in the door until he got to the counter is a win in my book. If I can get in and out of DMV in under an hour, I consider it a successful day.
The slowest customer service I experience on a regular basis is at Wells Fargo Bank, Riverjack branch, in Salem beside Long John Silver’s and across from Sheetz. It’s rare that I go in there and find more than two tellers working the counter, and many times, one of them is doing double-duty between the front counter and drive-thru. This means the DT is their priority position, so they can only take customers with certain relatively quick transactions on the front, leaving the other teller to handle the bulk of the business. For a couple of weeks, they would have someone walking down the line of customers, chatting each one up about the weather, etc., in order to make the customers’ wait in line more pleasant, I suppose. My favorite exchange occurred one busy morning when I heard the bank rep ask a gentleman about my age, “How are you today?”
“Fine”, he replied.
Bank rep: ”I’m sorry you’re having to wait. We’re pretty busy today. Guess the nice warm sunshine brought everybody out.”
Customer: ”Did y’all ever think the line might move faster if you were behind the counter waiting on customers instead of out here just shootin’ the breeze with us? Maybe it’s me…”
“It shouldn’t be too much longer”, said the bank rep as she quickly moved onto the next customer in line.
After that, I haven’t seen the ‘greeter’ being utilized. I’d love to think that surly old cuss had something to do with it.
13 Suns, you haven’t had the full DMV experience until you’ve been to the one in San Jose, CA. It was huge and looked inside like a hundred year old post office. The guy with the Mogwais that ran the gift shop in the movie “Gremlins” waited on us. The people watching was second to none, too. Although, we were likely the one’s being watched as we definitely didn’t fit in.
“…the clerk at the DMV who recently helped me didn’t know how to transfer the personalized Virginia license plate…”
The clerk at the Rocky Mount DMV that I dealt with about five years ago when I first moved to the area, didn’t seem to know about email. I went to the DMV office with what I thought was more ID than needed to have my out of state license and registration changed to Virginia. I receive my bills and statements electronically, so I printed several of them, all of which had my Virginia street address included. I presented them to her and she said something like “these didn’t come in the mail, you printed them”. To which I replied, “That is correct. I receive my utility bills and bank statements electronically, so I printed them at home” Long story short, she wouldn’t accept the documents as proof of ID and Virginia residence, citing the fact that the pages “were not folded so it was obvious that they didn’t come in the mail”. This after I repeatedly told her how the documents were generated. She also refused to bring a supervisor into the conversation.
I left the Rocky Mount DMV office, drove to the one in Bedford, and using the same “unfolded” documents I had my Virginia license and registration in about 15 minutes.
Jp, it might have been the same person that conducted Jack’s vision test and said 20/40 or “higher” is required to pass.
I HATE going to the DMV. I would actually rather go to the dentist than the DMV.
Oh, by the way, the Wytheville DMV is the BEST. They have humans that work there. The Tazewell DMV is okay, Christinasburg is hit-and-miss.
I must be the odd man out…I think the Roanoke DMV since it moved is reasonably efficient. I’m with 13Suns….any < 1 hour time there start to finish is a big win.
My pet peeve is when you're checking out at a grocery store or (in my usual case) CVS…you wait on line, finally get to the register, and the transaction screeches to a halt when the phone rings and the person on the phone takes precedence over the real live person standing there. I walked on my purchases once after 10 minutes watching the clerk run around gathering prices for the phone customer. Store managers…tell your staff to wait on the live customer FIRST and let the phone ring. They can always call back, or get off their butts and come to the store.
Wow, I have never been at Kroger while a cashier suspended checking me out to go hunt prices for a customer who had phoned in.
It was a CVS. And it’s happened more than once, but that was by far the worst time and it still annoys me.I have had Kroger people answer the phone but not wander off.
When will you people going to understand? It’s the government. You are going to freaking wait. Government employees don’t have to please you. They don’t care. They know they will keep their jobs if they work hard or they don’t. Remember government employees didn’t go through any scrutiny to get hired that private sector people do. They didn’t have to show personality or smarts. They got hired because they were friends, relatives or supporters of the leftwing machinery in charge.
Kristen:
“Store managers…tell your staff to wait on the live customer FIRST”
Amen! I once had a cashier who took the phone on a couple of customers in line in front of me, so I called the store when my turn came up to check out. After asking her if a couple of items would scan, she looked up and realized it was me. The blush was priceless. At least she was conscious of it after that.
“When will you people going to understand? It’s the government. You are going to freaking wait.”
Have you saved that gem for your archive, Suzie?
“They don’t care. They know they will keep their jobs if they work hard or they don’t.”
This much is true.
Waiting is the norm, been in a doctor’s office lately? Been standing in a check-out line at most any retail store? At least the DMV has chairs. The secret to the DMV is to take something to read. If you have a book, you will be called in a matter of mere minutes, if not, you will be 30-45 minutes. State and local governments have been laying off workers (that is not the norm) so wait times have increased. Also, that “press one for…” system is a lot cheaper than an actual receptionist.
“Going back as long as the data have been collected (1955), with the one exception of the 1981 recession, local government employment continued to grow almost every month regardless of what the economy threw at it. But since the latest recession began, local government employment has fallen by 3 percent, and is still falling.”
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/americas-hidden-austerity-program/
Well yeah, we all know that nepotism and hiring inept friends never happens in the private sector. DUH!
Anyone who has to deal with the public, made up of all too many of the worst we see here, has more than earned the exasperation they sometimes show. And again, kidding yourself that it does not happen in the private sector is just dishonest. Typical, but dishonest.
Well yeah, we all know that nepotism and hiring inept friends never happens in the private sector. DUH!
Hon, the private sector businesses have to show a profit or they go down the drain. The obviously have to hire competent people for that reason. If in fact some are related or friends, it’s fine as long as they are qualified. Business owners can hire whomever they want.
The public sector is supposed to be objective, but we all know they aren’t. As I’ve said before, call any municipal building for any city Roanoke’s size and larger. There’s an excellent chance you will talk to a surly rude friend/relative/posse-member of the city’s liberal leadership.
#1 I see that another one of suzie’s “predictions” has gone bad. She told us 13 Suns would soon “disappear,” possibly by “dying” because 13 suns was simply the invention of somebody, maybe Dan.
Next up, according to suzie, one day, sometime, maybe years from now, the MSM will unfairly attack Coach K.
Sandi:
“13.Well yeah, we all know that nepotism and hiring inept friends never happens in the private sector. DUH!”
But, when the private sector does it, it’s their money. When the government does it, it’s our money. DUH!
And Gdad makes another trolling false and tasteless comment.
“Lucky callers have learned to touch a certain number”
More often than not, it’s “0″.
It’s not just the “government”…it’s plenty of private concerns that make you wait as well, as the OP points out.
#17 Nothing false about it.