Incompetence Squared

I have written previously about the people in the title division of the New York State DMV.  It is no longer cool to make jokes about Polish people, Italians, people with physical disabilities, people with learning differences, Black people, Asians, Hispanics, gay and transgender people, Jews or Irish people.  It is still OK, but not a best practice, to make fun of rednecks, lawyers, Kerrymen, Newfies and Californians.  In the interests of lessening the current political polarization of the country, it is better to not have fun at the expense of MAGA politicians, Second Amendment whack-jobs, Texans, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee.  Right-thinking people generally don’t make fun of Canadians any more – although we turn a blind eye when we see other people doing it.

But it is still open season on people who work in the DMV.  And the manufactured housing section of the title division in Albany is the red dot inside the bullseye on the chest of the paper silhouette of a guy answering a wood-burning land-line phone as he yawns, wanks, munches on a ham sandwich and counts down the minutes till the weekend.

Customer hears a DMV worker read a VIN number and asks, “Is that ‘B’, or ‘V’?”

“’B’ as in ‘Victoria’.”

“Is it ‘P’ or ‘B’?” 

“’P’ as in ‘Ptarmigan’”.

“Can you spell ‘Mississippi’?”

“You mean the state or the river?”

DMV employee texts his mother.  “Hi, Ma.  I had a motorcycle accident yesterday.  I broke a leg.  Fortunately, it wasn’t mine.”

DMV employee comes home from the dentist with all his teeth pulled out.  His wife says, “But you only had one bad tooth!”  DMV employee answers, “The dentist didn’t have change for a twenty.”

Twenty-something sitting on a stoop asks his friend, “What is Jimmy up to?”  Friend says, “Nothing.  He got a job at the DMV.”

DMV employee marries postal worker and has child.  Child grows up and finds his way in society.  Now we are in a world of hurt.

In September, Mike, the manager of my park in northern New York, and I bought a home from an old lady who had moved into an old-folks home in Utica.  She had bought it in 2004 from a guy I will call Danny.  Danny owned the park since the early 1990s, and he sold it to me in 2018.  When Mike cleaned out the home, he found a lot of crap.  Busted-up furniture, torn carpets, broken sheetrock.  Tens of cans of crushed tomatoes.  Enough COVID rapid tests for all the fish in China.  And an unsigned Certificate of Origin for the home, dated 2004. 

Danny hadn’t signed the home over to the old lady.

When a manufactured home leaves the factory, it comes with a Certificate of Origin.  When the dealer who bought it from the factory sells the home to the home’s first retail buyer, he or she signs the Certificate of Origin over to the buyer.  The buyer sends the signed C of O in to Albany along with a bill of sale, an application for a title and a check for $125.  If everything goes right, the Title Division sends the buyer a title.

(On the third Thursday of each month, the employees of the Title Division gather in a conference room with a bunch of pizzas, some high-quality grain alcohol, some cheap hookers, and all of the $125 checks that were sent that month, endorsed to the head of the division personally.  They play craps until all but one person has lost their house and then they call in sick until the first of the next month.  That is why you should never send an application for a manufactured home title in to Albany after the 15^th of the month.  No exceptions.)

I contacted Danny to ask him if he could, belatedly, sign the Certificate of Origin over to my management entity, in order for us to apply for a title.  Danny is old and in bad health.  He wound up the business after he sold me the park.  His wife, who helped him run the business, has been in the hospital, and they spend winters in Mississippi (the state, not the river), but he was kind enough to meet me at a diner north of Syracuse and sign the Certificate of Origin, along with a bill of sale.  I sent those in with the other paperwork to Albany on September 21.  I waited for an answer.  I got bupkis.  After two months of radio silence, I called the help line to ask about the status of the application.

The Title Division uses hold music as a way to lessen their customer service responsibilities.  Most people who call the DMV customer service line do not have the Sitzfleish to get through to a real person.  There are two customer-service numbers.  One is (518) 486-4714, and the other is (518) 473-9977.  The -4714 number is the one they give out, but callers generally have slightly better luck with the -9977 number.  Both phone lines are always jammed.  It is not uncommon for callers to the -4714 number to be told, after a long wait on hold, that no operators are available and they should call back later.  In my experience, callers to the -9977 number just have to wait for a very long time. 

I called the -4714 number.  I received an automated message saying that no operators were available and that I should call back later.  I called the -9977 number, put the phone on speaker and settled in for a wait.  As the hold music played, I listened to some online content that I recently purchased, put two graham-cracker crust pumpkin pies in the oven and began work on a chocolate cappuccino cheesecake that I often make this time of year. After ninety-two minutes, I heard a voice say, “Hello – may I help you”, and I realized that I had an audience.  I wiped the butter off my hands and rushed to the phone.  I said, “I want to check up on an application I sent in on September twenty-first.  The VIN is Papa Alpha Foxtrot Lima four two two.”  The lady clicked some keys and said, “Oh, yes.  The application was rejected.  We sent it back to you.”  I said,

“I never got it.”

“It was sent on the 27h of September.”

“Can you tell me why it was sent back?”

“It says here that the Certificate of Origin was not signed by the dealer.”

I looked at the copy of the Certificate of Origin that I had sent in, signed by Danny.  I felt the usual sweaty itch I feel when I speak to the DMV and said,

“Erm – yes, it was.”

“Did you keep copies of what you sent us?”

“I am looking at them now.”

“Did you check with the post office?”

“Can you tell me what was wrong with the application?  It looks to me like the C of O was signed.”

“I only know what the record says.”

“Can I speak with the person who reviewed the application?  I would like to know what went wrong.”

“Please check with the post office first.”

“What if the post office can’t find it?”

“You need to check with them.”

“What if they can’t find it?”

I considered whether it might be impossible for a title to be issued in a case like this.  If that happens, the home will become the equivalent of a stateless person or a dead letter.  Remember what Melville wrote on the subject –

Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities.  On errands of life, these letters speed to death.

The lady asked me, “Do you have copies of what you sent us?”

“Yes.”

“Send it in again.”

“Can I please speak to the person who rejected the application?  If I send in what I sent the first time, I run the risk of making the same mistake or perceived mistake again.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Let callers speak with file reviewers.”

“Why the fuck not?  The file reviewer is the only person who knows the answer to my question!”

“This is the phone division.  The people who read applications work in the application division.”

“So – I can’t speak with the person who dinged the application?”

“Correct.”

“Even though they are the only person who knows why they dinged it?”

“That’s right.”

I had run out of breathing exercises and the cappuccino chocolate cheesecake was burning, so I hung up and walked out of my house to the post office.  I asked the clerk, “Can you please check to see if any mail to Box 1095 has been held up?”  The clerk asked,

“You mean you want me to check your box?”

“No.  I can check my own mail box.”

“So – what do you want?” 

“Was any mail sent to that box held up?  I am looking for something that came from Albany in late September.”

“Do you have a tracking number?”

“They don’t send things certified”

“Was it a package?”

“It was a large envelope.”

“We can’t help you.”

“Could it be lying somewhere, misplaced?”

“No.”

So, I gritted my teeth, walked home and drafted a clear cover letter in plain, Anglo Saxon English stating the problem and a suggested solution.  I stuffed it in a nine-by-eleven envelope with a check for $125 and copies of everything I had sent on September 21.  I would like to send it now to minimize further delay, but I will send it on December 1.  Fuck if I want it stuffed into some cheap hooker’s g-string by a low-level state government employee on a downward spiral to bankruptcy.