I own a 2003 honda cruiser motorcycle that I register every spring then drive all summer. My neighbour is kind enough to let me store it in his large shop for the winter. For some reason, for the last four years, every time I go to register the bike, the registration certificate is printed out with conditional registration printed in bold type right across it.
The first time it happened, I asked my agent why, and he had no idea. Subsequent inquiries to SGI produced much similar results. No one had a clue or how to fix it. After several inquiries, SGI discerned that for some unexplained reason, the computer was unable to read the VIN correctly, and that was the problem. Well, the bike is currently 18 years old, and I have owned it for 11 of those years, and in all that time, the VIN has not changed. Why now. No answers, but if I sent them a picture of the VIN, it would be proof positive of the existence of the bike and should solve the problem. So I scrape off 40 thousand kilometres worth of road crud off the VIN, photograph it and send it to SGI.
Now I was assured there was no problem with the insurance or the registration, but tell that to an RCMP next weekend at the intersection of Highway 20 and 322 and see how that works out for you! Then they mail me a clear certificate.
Next spring, however, same old story for the last three years. This finally forced me this May to email a letter to the minister of SGI, Don Morgan, outlining my problem and my frustration with this issue, not of my creation. Two days later, I receive a letter from the minister’s office informing me that a wonderful lady had very simply gone into the computer, erased my old file. Put in the new information and mailed me a new certificate. Fixed in five minutes and expressed some question as to why no one at SGI had done the same, seeing as they had more than adequate opportunity, four years, in fact, to correct this problem. Well, as I informed her, I was kind of hoping you could tell me! But the problem was finally corrected.
Then that very night, scanning the movie channels on television, and what do I come across but the old movie with Rick Moranis, John Candy, Joan Rivers and the immortal Mel Brooks. Spaceballs! And I come across the hilarious scene where the rebels escape to the desert planet and Mel Brooks as the evil emperor screams at rick Moranis to comb the desert for them. The next scene portrays them doing just that with an 8-foot plastic comb dragging it through the dunes in a massively hilarious but fruitless endeavour.
One of his minions comments that this a pretty useless practice, to which Lord Helmet replies. “We are just following orderskeep combing.” At that moment, I realized this is where my problem with SGI originated. No one can exercise even the least amount of initiative to solve my problem and instead adopt the old slave axiom. Do exactly what you are told and nothing more lest someone hold you accountable to do it all the time. The analogous nature of that scene was not lost on me, I assure you.
May the Schwartz be with you.
-Peter Foster
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