DMV ACCUSED OF DEPLETING WORKFORCE OF CRANKY WORKERS

Ask any small business owner. Retaining good employees is difficult these days.  But many business people say the Department of Motor Vehicles is making it even more difficult by hiring away their most cantankerous workers.   

Donde Nivels, who owns a small hardware store specializing in left-handed sprinkler parts, said he recent lost a longtime employee to the DMV.

Buzz "Mr. Sprinkler" Fesserman standing outside the DMV.
"Don't call me that," he shouted at the photographer. "And
get the hell out of here before I knock you cold."

"We called Buzz 'Mr. Sprinkler'," he said, referring to 72-year old Buzz Fesserman.  "Not because of frequent urination issues, which he did have, but because he knew more about sprinkler systems than anybody." 

"He'd yell profanities at customers and passed gas when he coughed. Everybody loved him.  It's a shame. Now he's gone...working for the motor vehicle department," Nivels said, shaking his head.  

And Nivel's isn't the only local store to lose a staff member to the DMV.  At Tinkle's Scrapbook Shoppe just down the block, owner Tinkle Bettencourt tearfully spoke of a former employee, 65-year old             Carmelita Intestino.  

"She always smelled like Icy Hot," said Bettencourt, wiping her eyes. "She was grumpy and hated everybody, but she always showed up on time.  Then one day she said she was going to go hand out driver's licenses and she was gone."

"Now every time I smell Icy Hot I burst into tears," said a blubbering Bettencourt.