How to be the Best DMV Clerk Ever!

Looking for advice on how to be a good person – one that others will want to do business with – despite dealing with the dumbest people on the planet all day? Hoping to garner some knowledge about treating others with dignity even when you hold ultimate power over them? Looking forward to being a little less miserable when you get home from your job at the end of the day?

Or, do you just work for the government in a public-facing role and you’re tired of being one of the most despised humans on the planet?

Excellent! You found the right post! Here is my quick advice for customer service roles in government jobs (and those jobs that feel like you’re working for the government):

You’re all on the same side. Too often, probably because of the barrage of negativity the DMV clerks receive, encounters at the DMV are adversarial from the beginning. They don’t have to be and you can control that.

Your job is assistance. Regardless of what they say at the Top, your goal is to assist the person in front of you in any (legal/ethical) way possible. Don’t get sidetracked because of some artificial pressure from above.

Never get jaded. When working in a public-facing government job (or even the customer service desk at Walmart), you’ll hear more lame excuses from the laziest of humans. Don’t let that color how you see the next person who steps up to your counter. They need help, and it’s your job to get them that help.

Kill them with kindness. Make the real jerks understand their jerkiness by using the same “kill them with kindness” lessons taught in How To Handle An Angry Customer. Because others will usually hear this exchange, you’ll get the satisfaction of knowing that everyone else sees that jerk for what he/she is… a jerk. (Letting them get inside your head will just make the job too miserable.)

That’s it. I really wish it was more complicated than that, but to be honest, being the Best DMV Clerk Ever isn’t that high of a bar now is it?