Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Dueling Divisions

My family and I ran into a bit of a snafu this week when we realized I did not have a current vehicle sticker on my car, even though I'd paid for one. When I went in to the DMV to investigate, it turned out that they had tried to send it to me, but it had apparently been marked as undeliverable and had been returned. Considering I've been at my current address for several years and have had no prior issues receiving mailings from the DMV, I have no idea what went wrong. (Well, I have some ideas, but that's getting into politics.) The issue could be with the DMV, but I think it could be the mail service.

It occurred to me that at least this incident might generate story ideas. What's the one public service you would want to keep running in a crisis? Which two public services are most likely to clash with each other? Which ones would be the funniest? Please leave your ideas in the comments.

4 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Sounds fishy to me.
Services like running water? That would be most important, even over electricity. Although electricity to run gas stations would be good as well.

Maria Zannini said...

Having lived through a hurricane, I think the one service I was most grateful for was the radio station.

Most of the stations in the area were destroyed but one, so all the DJs got together and manned the one good station 24/7. They kept people informed on who had ice, water, and first aid. When gas pumps were working again, they told us which stations were operational.

For public services, I really missed water though.

PT Dilloway said...

The Michigan Secretary of State has machines in some of their offices where you can get your license plate tab without waiting in line or for the mail, which is definitely nice. The year before I had to get a new license mailed to Arizona and the stupid post office nearly lost it.

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

Alex, I agree water is very important.

Maria, I wouldn't have thought of radio, but it makes sense that it would keep people informed.

Pat, that's a clever idea and would definitely save a lot of time.

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