dmv

why is it that the dmv gave me a bad vibe today? maybe it was the architecture of the building in el cerrito. maybe it was the multiple surveillance cameras and closed circuit monitors, (only two of which were actually on). maybe it was the rudely efficient tone and demeanor of the woman processing me for my driver’s license renewal. she didn’t seem all that efficient really, just rude, and i don’t get that feeling from people all that often, and when i do, usually a smile or some general display of having a pretty good time of it will warm them up.
no, i think it all goes back to the architecture. that building was designed with the purpose of processing large numbers of people, and form purely followed function. i kept looking around and wondering what else the building was designed to do. i was thinking that i could see the national guard or FEMA commandeering the place to use as a control bunker in a crisis of some sort. but then that didn’t make strict sense to me, because although it was sort of a windowless bunker, the entrances were glass, and i couldn’t see any visible means of shuttering them.
hmmm well that’s the effect this building has had on me, and it appeared to me to have that effect on the other people in there too. a building whose primary purpose is issuing identification cards and doing it coldly and efficiently. it gave me the creeps.