Textbook sweep and a great series at that. Feels almost as good as it will beating them in the playoffs on the way to the Cup.

A letter written by an angry copywriter friend worthy of a fireside rant. I think we can all relate to people messing with our work in any profession.

I don’t think they could make it any easier for a man to relieve himself. They place a target on the wall, waist high and wider than the operator’s body. All you really have to do is unzip and face forward. Handle your business, flush, wash you hands and get out. For some reason, this task is far too difficult for most in my office, because on a daily basis the freshly mopped floor is soiled repeatedly by around 11am.

Do people fall asleep at the urinal? Are they talking on a cell phone (I hope not)? This is really NOT that hard people. By age 4 most individuals are certified as “potty trained” yet 50 year-olds still have trouble hitting their mark. Perhaps we need to implement some sort of bathroom test in the workplace before people are granted a license to use it. Then all of the non-licensed individuals can all go out back and defecate in the woods because that’s how they treat the public restroom. I can only imagine what the janitorial staff thinks when they unnecessarily clean up grown men’s urine all day long.

So I’m fine with the idea of fast food. It’s terrible for you, tastes so-so, but it’s good in a pinch. Unfortunately, my local McDonalds is taking efficiency at the drive-thru to a whole new level.

While running to the bank today on my lunch break, I popped into McDonalds to grab a quick lunch. It was raining and I had no desire to get out of my car, so I figured I would eat at my desk; I know, I know, how could I possibly resist the incredible ambiance of the McDonald’s eat-in dining area? In the drive thru line (I will continue to spell this incorrectly as McDonalds paid some brilliant marketer to coin this very original and clever term years ago), I pull up and I am greeted by a man with a clipboard at my car window. He asks me what I want, but as I am far out of 20/20 eyesight range of the big illuminated menu, I tell him I need a minute. I roll forward and I am greeted by a second employee with a clipboard. I still have yet to have 1 second in front of the menu, so I ask her to wait and she shoots me a look of shear annoyance. I feel like I am under the gun now, so I order the first thing I see and before I can finish my sentence she’s telling me to move along.

I proceed deeper into the depths of this fast-food gauntlet and then a 3rd employee walks up to my window. I am getting annoyed now because I mentioned the reason for being in the drive-thru was to avoid the rain. So I roll my window down again which at this point has no further use because the inside sill of my door is soaking wet. He tells me the total and asks for a credit card. Like any reasonable person, I don’t want to give some random stranger my credit card in the back parking lot of a McDonalds, so I tell him I’ll just pull up to the window. He does not seem to understand and again tells me the total and puts his hand out for money to which I give in and hand him a $5 bill. He proceeds to walk about 10 feet over to the window that I will be passing in roughly 5 seconds and gives my money to a woman working the register. At this point in the story I have interacted with 4 McDonald’s employees and I can’t even smell the food yet. The man hands me my change as I pull up to the first window and I continue on down the line.

At the 2nd window and final stop in my adventure a woman fills my drink and hands a bag of food to yet another woman leaning out the window who in turn gives it to me. As far as I can tell, the 5th employee has a very useful purpose of fetching the food and taking care of drinks, but this 6th person does not take orders, change money or fill drinks. No the 6th paid employee in a process to squeeze $4.36 out of me has the very important job of sitting at a window and handing off food to cars as the pull up.

Since I don’t frequent many McDonald’s I can’t tell if this is standard operating procedure or merely a failed exercise in gross over-efficiency, but I do know that it made an already mediocre dining experience even less enjoyable.

I figured that it is only appropriate for the first post on this site to be a rant about the DMV. I would say the Virginia DMV specifically, except that I get the feeling that my state is not unique when it comes to complete disorganization of a government run facility.

The story begins with my secondary vehicle which is a 1989 Nissan Pathfinder, aptly named “The Black Pearl” by its previous owner. I have carried on the legacy of the now shortened “Pearl” in jest of the individual who sold it to me and it has proven to be an extremely useful vehicle during our short relationship.

Somehow over the last few months, The Pearl’s registration lapsed unbeknownst to me. Even better was I found out about this after waiting in line for an hour from the clerk at the DMV window. It’s a good thing I woke up at 6:30 and schlepped out of my way to go get a new title, only to find out the plates had been deactivated. Now I don’t know if I would say that I am an avid checker of mail, but I at least qualify for checking it daily and sorting things into piles of “junk” and “requires attention.” As much as I would like to toss things such as my power bill in the junk pile, I consider myself a responsible individual and instead pay it on time. Despite my impeccable record of checking and sorting all things that come to my mailbox, the clerk told me that I received the renewal notice in the mail and there was nothing she could do. Naturally there is NO possibility that the DMV made a mistake, nor is there a possibility that this renewal notice was lost in the mail. That’s a battle I just don’t have time for.

While annoying, this is an easily remedied situation. I go have the car inspected (as I do every year) and then kill another hour of my time back at the DMV; if only it were that easy. You see in switching insurance companies recently, I found out that my Virginia title is misprinted and shows the wrong VIN number for the vehicle. I bring up this matter to the woman who has already told me that I should do a better job checking the mail and she disappears to a secret back room presumably with a manager as handcuffed by red-tape as she is. She reemerges to once again shed blame and notify me that the typo originated on a Maryland title and that I would need to speak with someone at the Maryland DMV and then return to get a new Virginia title; that sounds like a fun all-day event. I don’t even like going to Maryland for Redskins games (an activity that I greatly enjoy), why would I want to go spend hours arguing with yet another clerk about how their predecessor screwed up and now I have to pay the price?

I can see the conversation with the Maryland clerk now:

Me: Hi, there is a typo on my vehicle’s title and I was told by Virginia I needed to come here since that is where the vehicle was originally registered.

Clerk: Oh, I’m sorry we can’t do anything with a Virginia title, you’ll have to talk to someone over there.

Me: You see I just came from the Virginia DMV and the manager there said that only Maryland could fix this.

Clerk: I’m sorry sir, but since the vehicle is not registered in Maryland, I cannot access any of the information, nor issue a corrected title.

Me: I WANT TO STAB YOU IN THE BRAIN!

My Solution: It’s a 21 year old car that in 4 more years will be classified as an antique if it hasn’t fallen apart by then. I’ve already spent more of my time than this vehicle is worth dealing with this situation, so it will forever be misrepresented in the DMV database. I’ve also been reminded of just how much of a joke the DMV is, so thank you Virginia for all that you do for me and the thousands of dollars I give you every year.