This Blog Is Full Of Crap

I was down to a dollar on the Q card work provides me with, so I needed to add some money to it.

Work provides me with $25 in credit a month. If you do the math, I think I'm paying a little more per month under the new fare hikes than I was before, but certainly not as much as if I were having to pay for my own Q card totally out of pocket.

Instead of getting it recharged at Kroger or the Glass Palace of Arrogance, I tried to use the on-bus loader on the 3227 bus doing the 9 route this morning.

Huge mistake.

The card reader has minimal instructions on it, with labels like Q CAR and two steps: Insert Bill and Insert Card.

In English. And on labels. No spoken announcements or in Spanish like the robot voice for the stops.

Why did they have to add the robot voices in two languages for the stops if they're not going to do that with these on-bus loaders?

Anyway, I put the 20 dollar bill in, and the display showed that it recognized the 20. A light turned green somewhere and I put the card in the reader.

It told me to INSERT BILL.

I already did.

I put the card in the slot again. INSERT BILL.

I hit the Cancel button. INSERT BILL. Probably isn't even connected.

Great.

You know, I knew this thing would steal my money, but I just had to try it anyway. I just had to know for myself that this thing is a useless piece of crap, and it cost me 20 bucks to confirm it.

No number to call on the box. They assume it will work perfectly every time, stealing your money rapidly and smoothly.

There's a number on the card, but it doesn't say "In case of problems." It says for registrations.

I called it anyway.

It took 2 minutes to get a human, and they asked me for my card ID.

I gave it to them.

They asked what the problem was, and I identified the bus number, the route number, and said the machine took my money. I inserted the bill, and then I put the card in.

"Did you want a few seconds?"

I don't see any step saying "Wait a few seconds" on the box. Or the brochures. Or the web site.

I really hate it when people say "Oh, by the way, did you ...?" in instructions.

Instructions go 1-2-3-4-5-6 and so on. Until you're done.

You don't jump back a few steps. That's unprofessional, stupid, and dangerous if you're dealing with important procedures.

The woman then proceeded to admonish me for not waiting for a few seconds.

"Where does it say 'Wait for a few seconds?' on this thing?"

She then "Sir"ed me over and over to take command of the conversation and admonished me some more.

I told her to stop and tell me how to get my money back.

She went into the "Wait a few seconds" line again, and I repeated myself.

"Well, Treasury isn't open until 8..."

She never said where Treasury is, but I know where it is.

Downtown. Where METRO expect you to go for everything.

So, I'm out of credit on my card, I've got a fiver that I need to break into ones during lunch, and then I need to get to the Glass Palace of Arrogance to have Treasury tell me they'll process my request for a few days, and then I'll have what passes for a human in the customer service area load up some money on my card by hand.

I could load that fiver on to a Q card using one of the on-bus readers, you know...

NOT!

Fucking METRO.