On Tuesday I filled a form for a vehicle registration issue, went to the California DMV, got a number (B-something), and waited an hour. It turned out that I didn’t have everything I needed, so I had to go back this morning.
I get a number, this time G038, and waited. After about half an hour I was called to window 16. However, there was someone else there. An earlier number had been called for that window four times before G038 was called, and the person with that number was really slow getting to the window. The DMV employee apologized to me. I waited for about ten minutes, while people who arrived later and got G039 and G040 were called to other windows. Finally the slow person was done, and I handed my paper to the DMV employee.
She apologized that she was not trained for vehicle registrations, and the front desk had put me in the wrong queue. I should have been given a B-series number again, rather than G. She spoke to a supervisor, and after a few minutes sent me to a different window. I waited a minute there while someone else was concluding their business. Once that was done my issue was actually taken care of very quickly.
If I’d had an appointment I wouldn’t have had to wait as long, but I needed it done this week rather than next week.