Try calling the New Hampshire DMV. The phone number: 271-2371.

If you reach a live human being, email me. I’ll send you some swag.

I spent two days fruitlessly trying to get through during normal business hours. All that ringing, yet no one picks up.

Finally, someone picked up--a recording of someone. The friendly female voice confirmed that I reached the NH DMV. Then she added, “No one can take your call now.”

No way to leave a message. No touch-tone options. No suggestion to send an email. It was a recording that offered nada.

Your only recourse is to hang up and wonder if it’s fairer to blame Gov. Lynch or John J. Barthelmes. He was appointed by Gov. Lynch to run the NH Department of Safety. The DMV falls under his purview.

According to the state website (http://www.nh.gov/safety/commissioner/index.html), Commissioner Barthelmes graduated from the FBI National Academy. Sir, did the FBI teach you to make it impossible for callers to report a crime?

If you live and drive in the Seacoast, you’ll eventually trek to Dover Point’s DMV office to renew your license. My advice: Shower first with deodorant soap. Coast, Irish Spring, maybe Dial.

That 35-square-foot room is so cramped with people standing and waiting that you feel like you’ve stepped onto a New York City subway car. Forced intimacy is fine when you live in Manhattan and enjoy world-class museums and Central Park splendor. But in laid-back New Hampshire, why cram dozens of people into a space that would barely fit five tuna cans?

Is it too much to ask that bureaucracies function at a C level (or maybe B-)? Here’s a better question: You know those eternally happy people who whistle all day and smile at everyone and seem to drink in life with their positive attitude and love of sunrises and moonbeams? Well, how do they cope when they can’t get through to 271-2371?

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Morey Stettner writes The Young Curmudgeon blog for www.portsmouthnh.com. He's the author of SKILLS FOR NEW MANAGERS (McGraw-Hill) and THE ART OF WINNING CONVERSATION (Prentice Hall) and editor of Managing People at Work (www.managingpeopleatwork.com).