What made it even worse was it was a combination commercial and personal DMV (I don't know if they all do commercial stuff now as well, but it was a rarity back then.
They had a DMV officer in there standing guard (even before one would imagine mass shootings in DMVs would have become a thing) and they wore uniforms similar to the State Police, as if they wanted to be State Police but had to settle for being Registry Officers.
I hated it. You couldn't avoid somehow getting into a wrong line, which I did once and only found out after about an hour or so of waiting that I had to go to the back of some other line, and I nearly blew a fuse.
It was also a weird building. It was circular, I suppose they were trying to be futuristic when they built it back in the Sixties, I guess. And not that big. So the layout was odd inside.
It was where I got my license, took my driver test, and had to go there to transfer plates, etc. I used to dread it. I began to avoid that Registry like the plague, and would drive an extra 20-30 miles to go to ANY other Registry than that one.
Fast forward forty years. My wife and I were watching the movie "Knives Out", which was filmed in Massachusetts, some in my town, and included a scene that featured prominently the dry cleaners where I rented my tux for my wedding from. This was interesting and fun to watch.
And there was a scene in the movie where someone committed arson at a State Police lab to destroy a toxicology report, and when I saw this on the screen, I nearly leaped out of my seat and began pumping my fist while shouting "YES! YES! YES!
I had no idea that old Registry was going to be in the movie, but it was so distinctive in appearance, the instant I saw that scene I blurted out "They're burning down the Marlborough Registry!" Well. As traumatized as I had been by that place, you can only imagine my disappointment as I drove by it hoping to see scorched ground and rubble only to see it intact with its usual brooding malignant appearance, realizing then that it was only a contrived Hollywood scene, and no horrible Registry was actually harmed in the filming!
One final note in this: Sometime in the Eighties, I had to go to a Registry of Motor Vehicles to get a new plate when I was in college. I had Florida plates, and had to get Massachusetts plates. I went in there loaded for bear, being the first one in when it opened. I had taken half a day off from classes, had everything double and triple checked, and girded myself to do battle with government bureaucrats.
I was ready.
I went in there, and...it took three minutes. They took my Florida plate with the $20 I slid under the window, and gave me a shiny new plate. I stood there blinking, unmoving, until the guy jolted me back to reality with a loud "NEXT." and I walked out into the morning sunshine in a daze.
As you can guess, I viewed this story of the woman ramming her car into the Registry as a blow for all of us mistreated and traumatized by those places!
In the CGI cartoon movie “ZOOTOPIA” where the characters are all human-like animals, the DMV clerks are SLOTHS...............
We don’t have a DMV ‘office’ in Florida any more.
All licensing is taken over by the County Tax Collectors offices..........
LOL! In Michigan the experience (SOS, rather than DMV) is sometimes horrible, sometimes whoosh, right through. I’m grateful that I’ve done operator license and plate renewals on line for quite a number of years.