Beware DMV employees wearing MAGA hats

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Just got back from taking my youngest daughter, Chlo, to her drivers test to get licenced to drive in the state of Florida.

I took my oldest daughter to her driver’s test two years ago. She passed, but not without comment from her tester.

*“Your daughter’s got a lead foot and I could fail her for that, but, otherwise, she’s a good driver and a good kid, so I passed her.”
*
Chlo is a much better driver than her sister. Safe, slow and responsible. I white knuckle it driving with my oldest; I relax driving with Chlo.

Chlo’s best friend had her driving test 30 minutes before Chlo today. On the way to the DMV, her friend texted:

“The instructor stopped my road test after 2 minutes. He didn’t say anything, just made me drive back and park. Don’t know what that means. I don’t like him.”

Less than 5 minutes later, she texted, “That old 70year old f%#er failed me! I didn’t do anything wrong! … they should exterminate old people. I hate him! F%#ing douchebag geezers. He was wearing a MAGA hat!” Her diatribe went on and on. I didn’t know teens knew the kind of curses she was spewing. If I were a sailor, i’d be blushing.

Needless to say, this text conversation did not comfort my daughter.

Minutes later, we arrive at the DMV. The instructor introduced himself. He was ~70 years old and wearing a MAGA cap. He told me to wait inside while he took my daughter for her driving test. Instead, I went to the lot and watched the test. Looked to me like she passed with flying colors.

They get back to the office, my daughter gets out of the car, looking dejected. Mr. MAGA hat gets out of the car and walks past us without saying a word. He say’s, “wait in the waiting room till I call you.”

30 minutes later, he calls us to his station. He tells my daughter, “you failed.” He gave some lame excuse for her failure (same lame excuse he told her friend). I said, let her try again, she was obviously nervous.” He said, “nope, she’s got to reschedule for another day. That will be $6 for today.”

I said, *“you failed my daughter for some lame reason and you want her to pay $6?”
*
“Yep”

I said,* “sorry, I don’t have $6 and neither does my daughter. Sue us.”*

He spewed, “b…but, I’m going to make a note of this on the computer!”

“Ok, why don’t you do that.”

At that point 2 ladies in the office who were listening to all this said, “c’mon, Bob, pay for this poor girl’s test, it won’t kill you.” It was obvious they were fed up with their co-worker’s bullshit tactics.

He reluctantly ponied up the 6 bucks and said, *“you better have $6 when you get retested!” *

I said, *“we will, but we won’t get retested at this DMV. Merry Christmas scrooge” *(actually, he looked about my age). Then we walked out.

My daughter’s devastated and embarrassed about failing her driver’s test. So is her friend. I’m making them a nice dinner (vegan, because they are vegans).

Daughter: nose ring, tats and blue hair. Best friend: orange hair, piercings and tats. DMV guy: stubble grey beard, blue jeans and MAGA hat. You do the math.

2

A billion yrs ago, i remember them taking the money before the test.

3

I understand you’re mad, but I’m not sure what the MAGA hat has to do with it.
Also, it can’t possibly be a good idea to stiff the DMV. I’m not sure what your reasoning was for that. It seems that has a real possibility to backfire when you go to retake.

4

What were the actual words he offered for “some lame excuse”? And where are you that the DMV runs the whole test and then collects payment afterwards? That seems like a bizarre way to do things.

5

Seconded.

It seems like a better tactic would be to record his explanation (or lack of one) for the failure and then file a complaint. Have your daughter’s friend’s parents do the same: identical complaints starts to show a pattern. Depending on the policies in effects state employees, it may also be verboten for him to be wearing a MAGA hat on the job (which the military has taken to be a campaign slogan, and therefore not permissible for wear related to official military duties).

Out of curiosity (feel free to ignore)… what was the reason The Hat gave for failing your daughter?

*ETA: seconded with the caveat that I think “the big deal” is this guy is bringing his politics into play by wearing a MAGA hat on the job. Which may be against the conditions of his employment and, regardless, is pretty darn unprofessional IMHO.

6

Reminds me. I was at the clinic today. I had to wait a few minutes for the infusion room. A guy strutted in with a MAGA hat on. They called “next”, we stood up at the same time. Walked to the window and he looked up at me, (He was very short)and said something like “oh, Miss Highpockets, didn’t see you there”.
I said “That’s ok Mr. Short MAGA hat guy, I saw you”
I wanted to kick him.
(I have this ‘problem’ with short men and wanting to kick, them. I’m thinking of getting help with my ‘problem’)

7

Frankly, the most alarming part of the whole story (IMHO) was the “they should exterminate old people” rant

ETA: although wanting to kick men for their height deficiency might deserve honorable mention

8

What size steel toed boots you wear? I’ll send ya some…

9

Interestingly, the DMV changed policy 999,999,999 years ago.

10

:confused:

11

I never carry out these threats.
I’m 6ft tall, add shoes and I’m taller. A lifetime of short mens eyes looking at a place somewhere between my belly button and neck tends to put a girl on the defensive (:)) just sayin’

12

The most alarming thing to me is that a human piece of shit is distorting the system to abuse and extort people he disrespects.

But then I have a vague fondness for society running smoothly.

13

That’s certainly what the OP’s perspective is, but without knowing the reason given (and the actual driving test, which none of us can review) there’s no real way to know if the instructor is “distorting the system to abuse and extort people he disrespects” or just doing his job and disqualifying unqualified applicants.

14

I believe that there is sufficient data in the OP to conclude that one of the two is true:

  1. The OP is full of lies from stem to stern.

  2. A human piece of shit is distorting the system to abuse and extort people he disrespects.

I mean, when I got my driver’s license I was an objectively terrible driver, and I still passed. These things are generally not draconian, and somebody bad enough to fail would be visibly bad - particularly if they were bad enough to fail in two minutes. There is no vaguely possible way to interpret this situation as a fair test - unless of course you have the preconception that 70 year olds in MAGA hats are always right.
I do confess I’d like to know what the lame excuse excuse was, though.

15

Eh, fair enough then. I’m mildly curious about your story too. Did he call you “Miss Highpockets” because of your height or for some other reason?

16

I assume it was for being tall. Kinda like the old quip 'how’s the weather up there?"
Heard that a few too many times.

17

I keep checking back to see if Tibby will tell us what the girls failed for…

Or better yet, Tib, let the girls loose on here! I want to hear some Teen Girl Power Awesome Venting!

18

I don’t know about the driving performance part, but the tester wearing a political symbol for an official state-sanctioned test seems not right. If nothing he wore had words or letters on it, we probably would not be having this discussion. The girls would just be complaining about old people. Instead, wearing that hat instantly built mistrust, same if the roles were reversed and the tester wore a Bernie hat. Should not be allowed.

19

Daughter not getting her drivers license today as opposed to next week, or the week after, is not a big enough deal to escalate or get our panties all bunched up.

I will take Chloe to another DMV to get tested asap. No big deal. It means my daughter has to take another day off from school (which she really can’t afford to do) and I have to take another day off from work. That’s just part of parenting.

Not a concern if I thought my daughter deserved to fail. But, I don’t think she deserved to fail. Nor, do I belive her friend deserved to fail.

In my daughter’s case, the very last part of the 15 minute test, the instructor told Chloe stop right before a railroad crossing, then told her to do a U-turn. She did as he asked. I was watching and I did not see her turn on the tracks, I saw her go past the tracks, then turn. Maybe she should have gone further past the tracks, but she did not turn on the tracks. The instructor said he saw her brush the tracks on the turn. If she failed, then they should revoke my license too, because I would have done it exactly the same way, and I believe most of you would have, too.

It certainly didn’t help that the instructor was brusk and intimidating—not a good feature for dealing with scared kids.

<snip>Frankly, the most alarming part of the whole story (IMHO) was the “they should exterminate old people” rant<snip>

Teenage melodrama. Nothing more. Do you think teens really want to exterminate old people, or do you think they’re just letting off steam to their teenage friends when they feel unjustly treated? Pretty sure your and my generations had similar rants back in the day.

The reason this incident pissed me off is because I don’t believe my daughter did anything wrong in her road test, and she was looking forward to getting something positive happen in her life after a long series of failures. Something she could be proud of. Something she could post on social media to her family and friends.

Chloe was dealt a bad hand from birth. She has moyamoya disease, a congenital disease that causes strokes. She had her first stroke before birth and three strokes after birth. She endured 2 major brain revascularization surgeries. She has permanent partial paralysis of her left hand and foot (unfortunately, she’s left-handed, so she can’t write well). Luckily, her right side was not affected, so she can drive unrestricted. Her mother abandoned her when she was 3.

She’s struggled her whole life with weight control (thanks to moyamoya) and academics, unlike her sister who is model-thin and an academic and artistic over-achiever (full-ride scholarship to a fine art school, and more). Chloe loves and brags about her gifted sister, but I know deep down she’s envious of her accomplishments. She’d love to excel at something. Anything.

One thing that Chloe excelled at was driving. I’ve driven with her as a passenger (legally, as per Florida law) for ~ a year. She’s a great driver. Better than me. Probably better than you, too. It’s a point of pride for her. It’s the one thing she felt she could do better than her sister.

Passing the driving test would have been a point of pride for Chloe; failing the test is a point of embarrassment.

This clown of a DMV instructor denied my daughter that small point of pride by failing her for supposedly brushing a train track on a u-turn. A brush that I did not see, nor a brush that my daughter believes happened. This is a memory that will stick in my daughter’s mind for the rest of her life. Even when she passes the test, she’ll always remember that she failed the first time around. Second, once again, to her talented sister.

The DMV tester was a dick. Even if he thought Chloe failed the railroad track test, he should have given her the chance to re-do the test immediately, rather than tell her she was a failure. That’s something that can haunt kids for the rest of their lives.

20

Interesting. What if I said, “I have this ‘problem’ with fat women and wanting to kick them.” I doubt I would get a pass on the SDMB.