(Imagine you’re listening to the tune of Sonny and Cher’s “And the beat goes on…”)
If I was a resident of New Mexico trying to address a serious problem that I thought state government could help me with, I would have concluded after two days of searching online and by phone that there are no actual humans working for us.
I am college educated, reasonably smart and had a good record of tracking down information from state government when I was a journalist many years ago. For those reasons, I thought it would be relatively easy for me to find out a simple bit of information about how many Ferrari automobiles are registered in our state for a post I wrote on my blog earlier this week. Not so.
So far, I have run into an endless string of dead-end loops of recorded phone menus, useless websites and nothing resembling a place or person where I can find the information I am seeking.
After two days of searching online, I’ve only been able to talk to two live human beings. The first live person I was able to speak to was at the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue, which oversees the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Department, He quickly referred me to a phone number at the Motor Vehicle Department, which — guess what — turned into another endless loop of recorded phone menus.
I thought I’d give my state legislators a call. Neither one of them, Sen. Carrie Hamblin or Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, had phone numbers listed in the official legislative website. There are e-mail addresses listed for them, but I thought I’d continue to try to talk to a live person.
So I decided to do a moon shot and call the governor’s office. Amazingly, someone in person answered the phone. I told him what I was looking for and his first response was that “I don’t think anyone has that kind of information.” But he agreed to help me and said he would contact someone at the Motor Vehicle Department and have them call me back. I was skeptical that I’d ever hear anything more.
But I guess when the governor’s office calls, people hop into action. I received a call back within about five minutes from a woman with the Motor Vehicle Department. She also said she didn’t think that information would be available, but said I could go on to the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue Department website and fill in a request for that information.
So I submitted an online request form with the simple request for “Number of Ferrari and Rolls Royce vehicles registered in the state by county.”
I will let you know how this turns out. But in the meantime, I can’t help but feel sorry for anyone who lacks the skills to navigate websites or state government phone numbers to get information that they might desperately need. I suspect what I experienced is similar to what one might experience in another state or with the federal government.
I know I’m starting to sound more and more like Andy Rooney, the late curmudgeon from the CBS 60 Minutes TV show who routinely berated what he thought were silly departures from common sense.
But I really think our governments could make things simpler and not let computer nerds or “AI” dictate our choices.
aero-cordero.com 