Yesterday I spent an hour and a half of my life (that I’ll never get back) at the DMV waiting to get my license renewed. For some reason, the DMV seems to attract the same crowd as Wal-Mart. The guy in front of me in line was sporting Pac-Man pajama pants and house slippers while the guy behind me in line was shouting profanities and dropping f-bombs like he had a quota to fill.  Crikey.

Anyway, with nothing to do but kill time my overly analytical brain evaluated everything going on around me. In a country where we are taxed to an obscene extreme, the amount of waste/inefficiency in government is simply inexcusable. Here’s what I observed: There were 3 employees working and the waiting line was around 60 people deep. I was told that new laws passed in KS no longer require that I take a test to renew my license. I simply need to 1) prove I can see well by reading 3 lines of text on a 1960s monitor and 2) get my picture taken. That’s it. I paid my $26.00 fee (you’ve got to be kidding me!) and I was out.

Here is the root of the problem boiled down to its essence: government jobs/programs are set up in such a way that they kill creativity. Government jobs require robots. When you work in an environment where you know nothing will change and your ideas don’t matter, what reason do you have to care? Why show initiative when no one listens? To quote Stanley from The Office, “This is a ‘run the clock out’ situation.”

In this example, here is the way things should run. I should be able to go online, pay my fee with a debit card, submit my eyesight requirements via a slip from my optometrist, and take a date-stamped pic with my webcam/digital camera for my license. For the older generation that isn’t e-savvy, they are still able to physically go into the DMV and bring those required items which would expedite the entire process. As a result of money saved from improved efficiencies, the DMV could be fully staffed. Employees should be encouraged and compensated for ideas that produce cost-savings in one form or another. Every government-run agency should have an efficiency rating and be held accountable.

Human beings need meaning in what we do. We are not robots. We are not meant to be cogs in a machine. When we are treated as such, we will react as such. If you don’t have meaning in your job, perhaps you should reevaluate what you’re doing. Perhaps you should create it for yourself.