I planned to write a different rant tonight, but something happened today about which I need to vent. NYS has recently allowed private businesses to become mini DMV offices where the general public can get license plates (tags), registration documents, apply for titles, etc. instead of having to go down to local DMV office to have these things processed. Of course like every public good being privatized, what was once free now has an additional cost. One of the requirements though is we must let clients and include in all advertising, these services are free at the local DMV offices or online. Because we are essentially operating as satellite DMV offices, we have to do all the collect, fill out and submit all the required paperwork employees of the DMV would the way they do.
The reason we had the opportunity to open on of these “satellite offices” is because for over 40 years, my mother has been operating a private service bureau (PSB) business handling paperwork for the public where she essentially stands on line for people who do not wish to deal with the DMV themselves. She used to actually stand on line at various offices across Long Island when I was growing up until the main DMV office in Nassau County opened a section specifically for people who do what she does. This causes some issues for her since the way things are done through processing work at the DMV through her PSB is sometimes different than the way it has to be done through the partnership service. In some cases, some paperwork can be missing information as long as the barcode brings up the required information or a copy can be used instead of an original document. As the person who usually processes the paperwork, I regularly have to call the partnership office to check what they require especially when my mother tells me I do not need something. Sometimes she is correct, but typically she is wrong. Today, one such issue occurred.
We had a customer come into the store looking to renew his car registration. When I put the info in the computer, the registration expired more than a year ago and we would have to take the paperwork to the DMV if the customer didn’t want to go himself. (Yes, she does that as some transactions cannot be done in our store.) My mother asked the customer if he would rather get a new set of plates which we could do for him. He agreed. Because the customer only had a copy of the expired registration, which would be all we would need to process a renewal, I said to my mom, “We need a copy of the title to process it.” She told me we did not. I called the partnering office who confirmed we needed a copy of the title. I told her this, and she said to process it because the customer would email a copy of the title to us by the end of the day. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly thrilled at this idea.
About 15 minutes before closed, my mother called up to my office to ask for the customer’s phone number because they had still not sent the title. Luckily, my mother was able to get hold of the customer so I could complete the batchwork to be sent to Albany. Without having all the proper paperwork, I could lose my license to process negatively impacting our business.
My mom is a smart lady, no doubt, but we are now operating under a different set of rules of which I am more familiar because I am not having to relearn processes I spent 40 years learning differently. I wish she would trust me when I tell her the information I am getting is correct for how we need to do things in the office.
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